RAW TRANSCRIPT

March 14, 2013.

8:30 a.m. CST.

U.S. Department of Transportation meeting.

PHMSA state onecall exemption forum.

    

    

>> LINDA DAUGHERTY:  Good morning, everyone.  I hope that you have had a great week so far and are geared up and ready for today's workshop.  We will be talking about real interesting topics.  Thank you for being here.  Get my slides going.  We have a very full agenda today.

We have a lot of things that we want to talk about and we want to provide time for good interaction and discussion.  So we will keep things moving today as best as we can.  I do want to say thank you to everyone that is here today.  All of our folks that have been involved, various organizations.  I want to say thank you to our CGA compatriots who got everybody energized and ready to go, because I know you have had some really good experiences this last week.  I know there are other organizations sponsoring events here.

It will be real good.  A few housekeeping notes, to get us started.

Presentations, number one question we always get.  Can I get a copy of presentations.  Yes, the presentations will be available on a Website.

Also very important item, today's forum will be webcast.  Everyone on webcast, good morning.  Thank you for joining us.

Please be engaged today.  Just because you are not here in person doesn't mean you can't fully participate in today's event.

The other thing, silence your cell phones.  Everybody, I get a nod of agreement, everybody silencing your cell phones.  We will make fun of you if your cell phone goes off in the meeting.

Emergency exits.  There is a lot of emergency exits around here.  You can see there is doors all around the room.  Probably if we have an emergency, I will probably head straight outside.  If you go out these exits at the back of the room straight out there is daylight.  There is also exits to the right.

You got the doors, you will find something really quick.  Rest rooms, at the doors, to the right and to the left.

Another item, this is part of our overall safety culture awareness trying to talk about safety, we are PHMSA is a safety regulatory agency.

I'd like to start off our forums with just a very brief safety minute.

A few years ago, then I will do that by the way, a few years ago, we had a colleague who went to a convention, or meeting, similar to this, lots of folks.

He went with a bunch of other colleagues, and he got up one morning and wasn't feeling good.  He had a bad headache.  He called a partner and said I'm not going to come down.  I'm going to sleep in.  I have a headache.  I need to sleep in.  Try to knock this headache.  He did so.  A few hours later, his partner, his colleague called the room and couldn't get an answer.

So he said, that is not like him.  He always answers the phone.  He called the hotel lobby and said could you come unlock this door, check on my buddy.

When they unlocked the door, they found one of our employees, a valued friend was lying on the bathroom floor.

They were able to get him to a hospital and he had emergency surgery.  The moral of the story was if his colleague had not known that he wasn't feeling well, he might not have checked on him.

He wouldn't be here today.  So when you travel to a convention, a meeting, and you are away from your routines, let someone know if you are not feeling good.  That chili dog you had for lunch or barbecue, if it doesn't sit well on your tummy, you are not feeling good, tell someone, tell a colleague, I don't feel good.  I'm going to lay down, whatever you are going to do.  If you are too embarrassed, do what I've done, call the hotel room and say, call me in two hours, give me a wakeup call.  By the way, I tend to sleep hard, if I don't answer, have someone come knock on the door.  Get me up.

The important point is, although it is a little bit embarrassing to do that, it could save your life.  Today's safety moment is be aware and do a favor for your family and friends.  Make sure you take care of yourself.

Why are we here today?  Well, we have got a lot of work assigned to us by Congress and the administration to deal with a very important topic for all of us which has to do with exemptions.

This workshop will look at these basic four objectives.  To improve our and I mean collectively our understanding of existing exemptions and the basis for those, so that we can better respond to a Congressional mandate, that requires us to look at those and study those and report to Congress.

We will also discuss data gaps.  Where can we find out information about excavation damage, exemption impact, all those types of issues.

We also and this is something I'm keen on, we need perspectives.  I know my perspective pretty well.  But you know what, I don't know yours.  We need to hear what you have to say.  Our presenters today, we have a good set of panels and they will present perspectives on these issues but we also need to hear from you.

Very important for me, we have to look at the path forward.  One of the things that we definitely need to do is hear each other out and listen to other perspectives.  Today we are going to have four panel discussions, they are identified there and this is the first panel sitting up here.

Each one, each panel will be followed by a Q and A.  There will be a good time for us to talk, and exchange ideas.

A very quick note, one slide on our perspective.  This issue has gotten a lot of attention by Congress and the administration.  That means that we have to address it.  It is not something that we can continue to go forward on.  We have to take some kind of action, or at least consider the issues, maybe, I don't know what the action would be but we do need to fully understand what the different perspectives are.

The second bullet is important.  We want to hear your perspectives as they relate to safety.  PHMSA is a safety regulatory agency.

When you make your comments, think about that in the context of safety.  This can be a very controversial topic.  There are some very strongly held beliefs and perspectives.

We all have a basis for those beliefs.  But I would ask you that when we do get an opportunity to openly discuss those issues and you have an opportunity to present your perspective, don't focus on a person or a group that you feel might be presenting an opposite view.  Focus on the issue.

If you have an issue that you think is a challenge for everyone, see if you can also present at the same time a potential solution.  That is the harder part.

One of the things that PHMSA looks at is how do we deal with a statement that there should be no exemptions.  Well, maybe a potential solution, and I'm not offering this as the solution, I'm throwing it out, might be that maybe there is no exemptions for any particular class of people, but maybe there are exemptions for particular tasks.  That is maybe one way to approach the challenge.

The other thing is, anecdotal perspectives are valuable.  But they are even stronger if we can support them with data and facts, something that we can go back and verify and show to the world.

This is why this particular perspective is important, because the data backs up its accuracy, it is not just a oneoff.  It is something that occurs all the time everywhere and we need to address it.

This forum will be successful as long as we are all engaged.  As long as we all express perspectives that we need, and that we clearly communicate.  So when we open up for the Q and A, I'd like to set some basic ground rules, I think we can all agree to.

Number one, be respectful.  When we get to that point where we may have some issues we feel strongly about, remember other people have strongly held viewpoints.  It is not about the people.  It is about the issue.  Be respectful.

Number two, identify yourself.  You get up at a mic later on, please identify yourself.  Also, we will have the webcast folks.  Please do submit your questions.  We will bring those up and address them as best as we can.

Also we will have index cards we will pass around for those that are too shy, hopefully we don't have a bunch of shrinking violets in the room.  Hopefully everyone will come up to the mic.  But if you are not comfortable getting up on a webcast.  Make use of index cards.  When we do Q and A, please stay on topic.  Everyone would appreciate if we stay away from advertising.  Stay focused on what we are here to discuss today.

Of course, you can do shameless advertising for 811, and national safe digging month is coming up.  That is good.  That is a good thing.

Then also, panel moderators, which will be myself and Annmarie, will try to keep people on time, because we have so much to cover.  When you are making a statement, be concise, and I'm speaking to all the panelists as well, be concise.  Try to keep within reasonable time limits, or we may have to cut you off and move on to another item, not so much for the panelists but for Qs and As.

One last thing and we will turn it over and get into the good stuff.  I would like to ask for the PHMSA personnel to come up front.  Where are they?  There is Harold.  Come on up.

There is Christie.  Take note of these folks.  These are the experts.  If you have questions during breaks, please talk to them, seek them out.  We have some of our great regional folks over here.  We have some of our head folks here, I want to name out particularly Christie, if you are a panelist and you haven't provided her your presentation, Christie, and Annmarie, who will be the moderator of the panels this afternoon, this morning.  I'm doing this afternoon.  And then Sam who is our next presenter.  And with that, I'm going to thank you all for being here and ask that Sam come on up and take over the show.

>> SAM HALL: Good morning.  I'm Sam Hall, with the Office of Pipeline Safety.

Thank you, Linda, for that great introduction.  I'm going to further Linda's comments, and add to them.  We have a large audience today.  We have a large audience on our webcast.  Welcome to our audience on the webcast and welcome to you as well.  Thank you for being here.

We, because it's such a large audience, what I'd like to do as best I can, level the playing field, with some fundamental information that I think is useful for this discussion.

Once I get through this 15 minute presentation, we will move on to our panelists.  Thank you for sitting here, and waiting for this to happen.  We had them sit up here in the interest of time, because we have such a packed agenda.

A little background.  Every state in the United States has a damage prevention law.  We all know that.  Typically, every state has some form of exemption in the law, that is the law will exempt some party from the requirements of the law.

There are two basic kinds of exemptions, notification exemption, and a membership exemption.  Notification exemptions refer to who has to call before they dig.  Some parties are exempt from that requirement.

In some state laws, specific excavation practices are exempt and in some state laws entire classes of excavators are exempt such as an entire Department of Transportation, what have you.

Membership exemptions refer to who has to be a member of the one call, and respond when a ticket is issued, a excavation ticket.  That is fundamental information.  But if it's not, this is a public forum.  I want to make sure that is at least understood.

There are some preread materials on the meeting Website that discuss what the current exemptions are in state laws.  I hope you will review that if you are interested in knowing which states exempt which parties, please go to our Website and look at that preread, if you haven't already done that.

Lastly I want to talk about the ways that PHMSA is addressing exemptions.  I think that there is quite a bit of confusion out there about what rules are addressing exemptions, what we are doing to address exemptions.  I'd like to clear that up, and bring some focus to what we are here to do today.

We are addressing exemptions in three major ways.  First is through an enforcement rule that we are developing currently.  The second is through grants eligibility, and the third is through an exemption study, which is really today is really kicking off the exemption study in many ways.

I'll talk about each of these in turn.

PHMSA is working on an enforcement rule that came out of the pipes act of 2006.  The pipes act of 2006 was the reauthorization bill that authorized PHMSA to continue to function as a government agency.

The pipes act gave PHMSA new authority.  PHMSA has authority to regulate pipeline operators in the U.S., the pipes act says that PHMSA now has authority to regulate excavators in the U.S.

It is a very limited authority.  It says, the pipes act says specifically that we can only enforce against excavators who damage pipelines, and only in states that are deemed to have inadequate enforcement programs.  In other words, states that aren't enforcing their laws, that is where PHMSA can take action against excavators that only damage pipelines, not Telecom, not water, not cable, just pipelines.

We published a notice of proposed rulemaking on this topic in April of last year.  We proposed four major things in that proposal.  The first was the criteria that we would use to determine if a state has an adequate enforcement program.

We can only use our enforcement authority in states with inadequate programs, how are we going to determine adequacy?  We proposed it.

The last three things that we proposed were how can states contest a notice of inadequacy, what is the due process for a state that is deemed inadequate by PHMSA.  What will PHMSA then enforce in those inadequate states, PHMSA does not enforce state law.  We only enforce federal regulations.  We proposed what would be enforceable in states that we would have authority to enforce.

Finally what would be the due process for excavators who are cited as having violated the regulation.

I've highlighted in red here the first bullet, criteria that we used because this is where we address exemptions.  I want to be very clear about how this rule addresses exemptions.

We proposed 7 criteria for evaluating state programs.  We can only use our enforcement in states with inadequate programs.  How are we determining adequacy?  With these 7 criteria.

They are focused on the 7 criteria are focused on whether a state is using its enforcement authority, whether it has enforcement authority, whether it's using it, what kind of investigation practices does the state employ to ensure fairness in the enforcement process, and then what are the minimum issues in the law that need to be addressed to ensure an adequate enforcement program.

The 7th criterion is where we address exemptions.  The language from the proposal is here on the slide.  It says does the state limit exemptions for excavators from its excavation damage prevention law.

A state must provide to PHMSA a written justification for any exemptions for excavators from state damage prevention requirements, PHMSA will make the written justifications available to the public.  This is one criterion of 7 criteria that we are using to evaluate state programs and we do not intend to declare any states' enforcement program inadequate based on this criterion alone.  The point and the purpose of this criterion is to shed a light on exemptions and state damage prevention laws, raise awareness within the state, and try to create some transparency in what state laws say, raise awareness among state stakeholders.

That is the rule.  That is where we are addressing exemptions in the rule.  It is a minor part of the rule.  I hope that is cleared up any confusion about what the rule says.

The second way addressing exemptions, PHMSA is addressing exemptions is through grants eligibility.  The rules I talked about came out of the pipes act of 2006.  In the create authorization bill from 2011 we have a new way to address exemptions.

The pipes act essentially says that if a state one call law exempts any state agency or local agency, local government agency, from the requirements of the law, and their contractors, then that state is not eligible for two specific grant programs that are managed by PHMSA.

The first is the state damage prevention grant program, the second is the one call grants program.  These are both specific to damage prevention, they are discretionary grants that we award to state programs that compete for the money, it's a limited pot of money.

And if you have exemptions in your state law, you are not eligible to receive the grants.  This does not address the base grants that we issue to states for oversight of the pipelines in their states.  It's strictly limited to these two grant programs.

We have started to implement this provision of the 2011 reauthorization.  We have preliminarily notified the states of their eligibility status.  We are in the process of formally notifying the states that are considered probably ineligible, there are ten of those states.

Again there are ten states that exempt state agencies or local agencies from the one call law.  They are probably ineligible for these two grant programs.  We will shortly be sending letters to state governors, requesting response within six weeks, and then any affected state agencies in one call centers will receive a copy of the letter to the governor.

The third way that we are addressing exemptions is through this exemption study.

This also came out of the 2011 reauthorization act.  The act says that PHMSA must study the impact of exemptions, the impact of excavation damage on pipeline safety, specifically on pipeline safety.

The study should include these four major points.  First, a analysis of the frequency and severity of the different types of excavation damage incidents in the state, analysis of exemptions to the one call notification system requirements in the state, a comparison of the exemptions to the types of damages that are occurring in that state, and finally, analysis of the potential safety benefits and/or adverse effects of eliminating all exemptions.  For mechanized excavation in the state  this is the third way we are addressing exemptions.  It is a Congressional mandate.  The study is due in January of 2014.

Today's forum is a kickoff to this study.  We are here to gather your input.  We would like your perspectives.  Exemptions are a very complex issue.  And one that is very challenging.  We want to hear opinions from the public and from affected stakeholders.

Our challenges are that as far as we are aware, there is no single national database that can help us create the study.  There are data sets out there that we can use.  But there is no single one that we can use.  That certainly is a challenge.

You get into extrapolating from one state to another.  There are those challenges.  It is a sticky issue.  We want to be careful about how we approach this.  We do have data, PHMSA does have some data.  We will examine our own incident reports.  But for the purposes of this study our data is somewhat thin, in that we only have a small fraction of the damages that occur to pipelines because of the federal reporting threshold.  We don't have every single damage that ever occurred to a pipeline across the U.S.

This forum as I said before gives us a chance to better understand the impact of exemptions on stakeholder groups which is critical for addressing the Congressional mandate to develop the study.

Panel guidelines, this dovetails off of what Linda was discussing.  Panelists will describe the impact of exemptions on their respective stakeholder groups using data to support their positions whenever possible.  Anecdotal evidence in lieu of data is useful but we are looking for data to substantiate claims about safety.

We are interested in learning what can and cannot be learned with existing information, and what can or should be done to fill gaps in the data that does exist.

This last point I think is an important distinction.  We are, at PHMSA, very focused on notification exemptions in particular.  Who has to or who does not have to call 811 or contact the one call center when they are going to dig.  We think that that is probably the greatest threat to pipeline safety, that is notification exemptions.

But membership exemptions are a part of equation.  In particular, we are concerned about, one, in particular, and that is exemptions for sewer operators, because of the cross board issue.  If you are not familiar with that issue, if sewer lines are not located, and marked, and a gas company is coming to install pipeline using directional drilling, they can cross bore through a sewer line, causing a backup eventually which brings a plumber out to roto rooter the sewer, hitting the pipeline, sewer migrates back into the structure, and you can have an explosion.

There is an exemption for membership that is of particular concern to PHMSA.  We would be interested in your perceptions on those exemptions to address the cross bore issue.  But we are really focused today on notification exemptions in general.

We welcome your comments on any exemptions of course.

This is my last slide.  It is a couple of questions for to kind of get our creative thoughts flowing.  What exemptions are or are not acceptable to your stakeholder group and how do you support these positions in the context of the requirements that Congress gave us to develop the study.

What would be the impact of removing all notification exemptions from state one call programs?  What is your basis for this position?  If you can keep or eliminate only one exemption, what would it be?  How can the damage prevention community collect more meaningful data, that demonstrates the impacts of exemptions.  Hopefully those slides or questions will at least get your mind going.  Our panelists will do a fine job of addressing these questions.  Now I'd like to thank you very much for your time.  I'll bring up Annmarie Robertson who will introduce the first panel and moderate it.  Thank you.

>> ANNMARIE ROBERTSON:  Thank you, Sam, nicely done.  The purpose of this first panel is to discuss the data that is available to various stakeholder groups.  We want to get an understanding of what is out there.  We know what we have as Sam discussed.  We know that there is more out there.  We have a large number of panelists, each of which is a subject matter expert in their field.

We have a room full of subject matter experts, with respect to damage prevention.  We are interested in having a good discussion, good interactive discussion on this.  I encourage the webcast viewers to submit questions.  We will make sure that, you can submit them throughout the day.  If you have a specific question for a specific panelist, make sure you indicate that.

I'm going to go ahead and kick off this first panel.  We are not going to give, read the bios for each panelist because we have so many panelists.  They will be available.  They are on the Website.  All the ones we have received so far.  You will find in reading them, that there is a broad array of expertise here.  But I will go ahead and list the panelists.  We have a little bit of change in the schedule, to accommodate some of the panelists' needs.  The first panelist will be J.D. Maniscalco.  He is the executive director of Colorado 811.  Followed by Masoud Tahamtani, director of utility and railroad safety at the Virginia State Corporation Commission.  Christina Sames, the vicepresident of operations and engineering for the American Gas Association.  Peter Lidiak, the pipeline director of the American Petroleum Institute.  Scott Currier, director of operations safety and integrity at the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America.  Followed by Bob Kipp, president of Common Ground Alliance who you have seen around this week.  And Jemmie Wang, vicepresident of strategic projects for United States infrastructure corporation. JD, I'll let you take over.  Your presentation should be coming up.  You can speak from the panel if you like.  Whatever is more comfortable to you.

>> J.D. MANISCALCO: I'm more comfortable standing.  When you address somebody, stand.  Welcome.  I'd like to thank Annmarie and PHMSA for asking us to this important forum.  Exemptions are near and dear to one call and as we know it all starts with one call.

I would be remiss if I didn't say that we are very appreciative of the grants that you have afforded us, especially during the last recession that we have been through.  For many of us one calls it's helped to get us through those times, continue to educate and make our excavators aware of the law and call before you dig.

I chair the data committee.  And  not moving forward.  Am I hitting the wrong button?  The data committee, dial 811.  The OCSI committee, the source of exemption related data is our data collection tool.  We have been collecting that data since 2004.  As instructed, I will keep, and the analysis that I've put together is on the data that was available, the data that was available was 41 states and that is for 2011.  We are currently collecting data for, from 2012, but we have approximately 24 states that have entered data.  We continue to have challenges in getting all the data from all the states.

So if you are part of a one call, if you have any influence on your one call, we would encourage you to ask your one call people if they have entered data into our tool.

Year after year it is more and more difficult, and forums like this, it is more difficult to make analysis if you don't have all the data.

So per your request, I've kept the data and the analysis to the 41 states that we have now.

We have, in an effort to take our resource guide and some of you have known that we printed that for many years, I think this is the first year that we haven't printed the guide in paper form.  But what we have done is migrated to a digital form.  It is important to note that all of the data is on a voluntary basis.  Nothing is mandated, and I think perhaps that is why we don't have the submissions, and I don't know how we would do that anyway.

When you look at exemptions by type, and as Sam said, we are looking at notifications and membership.  So when you look at the data sets that we collect, and this is, there is a total of eight that are sewer gravity lines that we do collect.  But at this point there is not sufficient enough data to do any analysis on sewer lines.  When you look at this graph, hand digging is 41 percent.  Home and landowner is 24 percent.  Agricultural is by far the largest exemption that we have in our data set.  Landscaping exemptions, from calling depth exemptions, and road maintenance.

The membership exemptions for mandatory membership, you would think that after all these years that every state one call would mandate participation in the one call.  That is not true.  We still have a small percentage that do not mandate membership in a one call.

34 percent D.O.T. membership, and I understand that that is near and dear to the, what we are discussing and what we are trying to provide data on.  The damage data this afternoon, my presentation, talks about some of the data that we have to exemptions, but right now, I'm not covering that in this presentation.

Then we have 14 percent that we have exemptions for railroad.

The slide comes out better than what I can see here.  But these are the total number of exemptions by state.

When you get down to the end, Texas 811 was listed as Texas 811 because there are multiple one call centers in that state and Texas was the one that provided this information.  I distinguished between all of the states and Texas 811 and you also see the same analysis with California.  California, north and south.  By number of exemptions in the state, you can see Texas has the most with 7 followed by Alabama, Colorado, California, Florida.

Agricultural exemptions by region.  So you have zero for the West Coast at four entities, the Rocky Mountain region, and I struggled between going between our regions and OCSI and making a break by the Midwest, west of the Mississippi, Mideast of the Mississippi, northeast, with a highest number of agricultural exemptions.

I think what happened over the years is when onecall law was passed, that many states, us included in Colorado, we copied some of the legislation that was from the state next to us.

I think that is how you see some of these trends occurring, because that is why you have such a large number of agricultural exemptions in the northeast region.

Hand digging provisions by region.  You can see there is no hand dig provision for the West Coast.  I'm having trouble seeing that.  It kind of runs together.  Rocky Mountain, Midwest, the northeast has the largest percentage of hand digging provisions.

Exemption data for homeowners and landowners, and the breakdown that occurs.

Average number of exemptions by region.  So again, the southeast has the 4.2 exemptions by region.

That may be coupled with the comments earlier or yesterday about the public ordinance metric that said that people in the southeast know where all the underground utilities are buried.

Pretty short and to the point on at least some analysis that you have from OCSI.  We maintain this data.  We have done it for a long time.  We look to expand.  We have had discussions with Annmarie about expanding possibly the data collection that PHMSA is doing, and using us as a resource.

We have listed those in the Website, for those that don't know the onecall URL.

I'm sorry, but I have to run to another presentation so I won't be able to take any questions after.  Yes.  Thank you.

  (applause).

>> ANNMARIE ROBERTSON:  Thank you, JD.  Our next presenter on the data panel is Masoud Tahamtani, Virginia State Corporation Commission.

>> MASOUD TAHAMTANI: Good morning.  Let me thank PHMSA for having this event here, to get a lot of people involved obviously in conjunction with the annual meeting, it provides a great opportunity for a lot of us to provide comment to PHMSA.  Thank you for being here and hopefully helping to do a good study.  I want to quickly talk about Virginia and where we started, and how we discuss exemptions almost 20 years ago.

And what our data shows in terms of how these exemptions are impacting damages and pipeline safety.

My division deals with both pipeline safety and damage prevention, pipeline safety on gas and liquid.  The reason I bring that up is that I get to see all the data together, and that is very helpful to be able to guide the program.

Background, 20 years ago or so, we were focusing on the leading cause of pipeline failures which was excavation damage.

We were beginning to collect data.  We realize that our law is not exactly good.  We brought together a set of stakeholders.  Everybody agreed that the law needed to be looked at, including a review of exemptions to see if they made sense for that time.  I'm proud to say that 20 years ago we were talking about the nine elements that finally end up in the federal law, as the elements that make up a effective damage prevention program.  I won't read them.  You can see what they are.

1992, we were talking about this stuff, 1993 we had a major accident in Virginia where a pipeline had been hit four years before that, on a hospital parking lot.  It ruptured four years later.  And dumped $400,000  400,000 gallons of diesel fuel into the Potomac river.  A lot of politicians including PHMSA and the secretary they sit across the river and watch the river, so they started bombarding us with letters, what are you doing about pipeline safety and damage prevention.

As you can see it had serious impact on the public, and of course ten million dollars in cleanup, and it was caused by excavation damage to a 36inch petroleum pipeline.  That didn't cause us to get more serious about our task force and the work that we needed to do.  And we changed our law in some very major ways.

We brought or introduced for the first time in the damage prevention community the response system, through our notice enforcement, keeps the fines within the commission so we can spend it on public education and use of data and so on, so forth.  Some of you have heard more about Virginia.  I won't bore you with it.

As infrastructure is growing, you can see it there, the number of tickets and locates are growing.  Our damages to pipelines have been coming down at a steady pace of about 70 percent, since 1996.

But you are here to talk about exemptions.  JD was not right, we don't have four exemptions.  We have nine exemptions.  As you can see, we have hand digging performed by homeowners.  It is exempt from the onecall.

We have soil for agricultural purposes, excavation by railroad on the rightofway.  Excavate, excavation or demolition during an emergency, if you are trying to fix a gas leak and there is public safety paramount, we have a set of reasonable rules that back up to this, that says you gotta do these things before, but you are not going to wait obviously three hours or a number of hours to get things marked.

Excavation during disasters, actually, to make things work, roads work, road and routine pavement work, milling, things like that, mining in permanent areas.  Excavation by operators to find their line under another ticket.  Finally installation of signs by hand.  These are the hanger signs you can see you push them in the ground, we have exemption for that.  We have had these nine exemptions.

We have been tracking data on them.  I'll talk about the last four years.  The last four years, we have had 396 damages to gas lines, and we get all the gas damages instead of Virginia, we investigate every single one of them.  So we had 396 damages to gas lines that have occurred under one of these exemptions.

That makes up about 7 and a half percent of the total gas damages.

Of that, 7.2 percent is caused by that one exemption where homeowners are not required to call before they hand dig on their own property.

The logic back 20 years ago was that every homeowner should know pretty much where their stuff is.  We all know that is not true anymore.  We got a lot of stuff, as Bob said, every one of us have stuff to cover a football field, and my backyard is a lot smaller than a football field.

All other exemptions combined is about .3 percent.  To Linda's point we need to figure out based on data, which exemptions makes sense.

The next slides simply represents the same data.  What we are doing next month, I have a conference and the stakeholders will talk about this to see if we need to go back to the legislators and remove the exemption from the homeowners.

And maybe come up with a way that we can encourage them.  The last point I want to make is that none of our public education efforts, call 811, none of them says homeowners are exempt if they are hand digging on their property.  We are pushing 811, digging with care.

But there is an issue that we are trying to resolve.  And with that, I will sit down and let the next person come up. 

  (applause).

>> Annmarie:  Our next presenter is Christina Sames with the American Gas Association.

>> CHRISTINA SAMES: I was hoping you all would stay seated because I'm in heels, something that you all probably don't have to worry about.

I'm going to give you a few observations from the American Gas Association.  For those of you that may not be familiar with AGA, we represent the natural gas distribution operators.  I think at last count, we have every publicly owned utility, natural gas utility, except one.

It is about 2.1 million miles all together.

A few general observations, from the research that we have done.  Oops.

Let me go back.  Exemptions exist, appear to exist in some form in just about every state.  Often these exemptions have been in place since the damage prevention law came into place, and you have heard a little bit of the history from the other speakers on how some of these have come about.

I've only listed five of the exemptions.  But as Masoud pointed out there is a lot more.  But these seem to be the top five.  Homeowner, state D.O.T.s, municipalities, agricultural, railroad, and what I call other.

A few additional observations, we are all here because we believe damage prevention excavation damage prevention is pretty important to our field.

Exemptions in my mind really are a contradiction to everything that the Common Ground Alliance and we have all worked really hard for, for over ten years, to always call before you dig.  They send a message that certain types of excavations do not actually pose a risk to underground facilities.  And they don't jeopardize the safety of the public or the excavator.  Even if the excavation damage does not result in an injury, it's still a threat.  It is still a safety risk, that has to be acknowledged.

For example, if a pipe is hit, and the repair is made, that doesn't mean that there isn't, that over, that underlying assumption by the excavator, nothing happened this time, something probably won't happen next time.

Exemptions for excavations, less than twelve inches, there are many examples that I'm seeing, where the excavation tends to go deeper than that.

So the excavator may be exempt from twelve inches or less of digging, and find that the situation that they are in really requires more than twelve inches.  It is extremely unlikely that the excavator will stop work to call before they dig any further.  We know that pipelines may be less than twelve inches, due to soil erosion, soil movement.  It is not what we intend.  It is not what we like.  But we know that that is sometimes the case.

We also know that digging with hand tools cause damages to pipelines.

I can't tell you how many times I hear that, well, the homeowner thought it was just a really big root, so they just dug a little bit harder.  They went right through the plastic line.

And one final observation, calling 811 is always free.  So it in my mind seems that the excavator really has nothing to lose, other than a little bit of time, from calling.  That time in my mind is really time well spent.

We were privileged this week to get a natural gas distribution report from the Common Ground Alliance and the great work that JD did.  You will see a couple things that I pulled from the report.

Hopefully, you have received a copy.  If not, I believe it's, it's available on the Website, right?  Great.

I know that Bob and I have talked about sending out a joint letter to all of AGA's members to highlight that report, and to encourage additional participation.  We have really good participation now.  But I'd like to get to a hundred percent.

From the report, 29 percent of the damages to natural gas distribution lines are actually due to not calling before you dig.

A few other things from the report.  There are over 66,000 events on natural gas distribution facilities in 2011.  That over 23,000 were not preceded by a locate request, that occupants and farmers seem to be the least likely to notify, and that is about 80 percent of the damages for that particular group.

Our position, certain exemptions may be warranted, but only if the data really shows that there is no risk.

I think that the work that Masoud is doing in Virginia really helps outside of legislation, and it may be that some of the exemptions that Masoud has in Virginia is fine.

Or what's existing in some of the other states is fine.  But I really, I'm a data girl.  I need to see the data to prove it.

So, I'll highlight what I think JD said earlier, the need to collect additional information.  We did a very informal survey of a small subset of AGA's members.  Just to get a better feel for what is going on.  We knew that they had better data that we did not have access to.

I'm going to give you a little bit of from what we found from that informal survey.

The state D.O.T.s exempt from one call cause as few as 0.1 percent of the damages for at least one of our operators.  That is high as 6 percent of the damages for another.  Municipalities have caused significant damages for some operators, and again, as little or no damages for others.

Then hand tools in over 20 percent of excavation damages occurred by one particular operator.  So what does that tell me?  That tells me that there is probably other things going on at the state level, that are influencing how people act and respond.

Which means that legislation is one piece, enforcement is one piece, but there are probably other things that should be considered in order to determine at a state level whether an exemption is adequate or not.  I personally believe that this can't be done at a national level.  It really has to be done at a state by state level.

And with that, I will turn it over to the next speaker. 

>> ANNMARIE ROBERTSON: Thanks.  Our next speaker is Peter Lidiak from the National Petroleum Institute.

>> PETER LIDIAK:  I'm Peter Likiak, here representing API and AOPL.  We represent approximately 50 of the hazardous liquid pipeline operators operating 90 percent of the interstate mileage in the United States.  I want to talk about our views on this, and looking at the data, one of the things we have done for quite a number of years is to collect accident data.  We know already that a very small percent of our accidents occur from excavation overall, 6 or 7 percent, but that when you look at which of the accidents that cause very serious consequences to the public, is it more like 30 percent of the cause comes from these excavation accidents.

We know already that excavation hurts people, and we have damages that occur and stuff gets out of the pipe.  That is our starting point on this.

Yes, the frequency is low, it is a little bit lower than for the distribution systems, but it's still a very important cause of injury, death, fire, explosion, evacuations, things that really impact the public.

We are very happy, by the way, and Sam mentioned this earlier, that PHMSA is moving forward to their final rule later in this year, because we think that it adds, bolsters to what is going on with excavation damage prevention right now.

That is a really positive thing, and we are very happy that PHMSA is moving forward with that.  States are looking at activity in their states and a number of the states, I list a couple here, some of them are doing it because they have had ongoing efforts, and some of them are doing it because they have gotten notifications from PHMSA, they are looking for what they can do to improve their programs, and help protect their programs, and do a better job.

What do we know about exemptions?  In PPTS the data we collect in the industry we haven't put a tag on whether exemptions were involved in some of the accidents involved.  That is really the case with the PHMSA data as well.  And just about all the other data that I know of, there really isn't very specific information about whether exemptions were involved now.  Of course, Masoud had some information, and that's, in his state database, but it's not a national database.

We went out to some of our members earlier this year, and said what can you tell us, it's similar to the story that Christina had to tell.

We got a response back in relatively short order from just nine of our members.  But we did get from them 100 plus events that were related to exemptions, either where an exemption were involved or where someone thought they were exempt, we had 32 line hits, we had 17 that actually involved releases of some sort, and of course the releases are where the real issue is, because that is where the immediate impact is.

The other events were important though, because there is that latent damage that can lead to failure later.  123 near misses as well, that is where the operators found someone operating on, digging on their rightofway, and that without doing a onecall first.

So really, the definition of near miss is something of a work of art here.  The folks in CGA are dealing with that, folks in PR CI are looking at this in research.  It is really important though that we get a handle on what near misses are, because near misses can be, oh, I was digging near the pipe and I should have had a one call.  Or I dug near the pipe and I hit the pipeline but didn't cause a release, is that a near miss?  Operators don't consider that to be a near miss.  That is a hit.

There is a hit that results in a release.  We have to really be thinking about what the right terms are when we talk about this.

Let's go a little bit more of an overview of what we found with our exemption data that we collected earlier this year from our nine operators.  For hits and near misses, 39 agricultural exemptions were involved.  24 of them involved government departments of one sort or another.

13 were property owners.  In our data we found that property owners do tend to be the highest category for damages from all third parties.  Three railroads, three hand tools, if you will, digging deeper than they ought to be.  And actually one in water.  So that is kind of what we have got from our more recent data.

We hope to add to this as the year goes on.  We have other companies that really couldn't get their data together quickly enough, and sift through it.

So just some examples of some of the things that were discovered in this survey.  I'm not going to read through all these.  I'm going to leave it up there and let you look at it.  One thing I want to mention, this is an example of the kind of data you get from, quote, anecdotes.  And it has been said that anecdotes are fine but we really need data.

Members aren't  numbers aren't the only data that is available.  Anecdotes are data.  It is information that has been collected and should be considered when you are thinking about what are the impacts of exemptions.  Because these are the stories that people have collected as a result of investigations they have done on excavation damage.  We shouldn't discount anecdotes.  They have to be part of the database.

So, again, there is really sort of varied interpretations of what the exemption definitions are.  Again, Buzz with Kinder Morgan is going to talk later for us and give examples of where there was a tiling plow issue.

Tiling is a heck of a lot different than tilling.  I think that is an example of where, if you are a farmer and you thought you were exempt for all your excavation activities, you would be incorrect.  Those exemptions usually in the states for very shallow tilling but not for tiling that might go down as deep as four or five feet.  It is important that exemptions be well understood by everybody, and that we look at where there are exemptions.

We don't believe we are kind of in the same camp as AGA that exemptions are a great idea when they are applied generally, because they give people the sense that there are broad categories of excavators that are exempt.

So those are some of the exemptions that we see.

Then simply speaking, these results do give us a good indication that many types of activities took place with either one call because of exemptions.  Either people had exemptions or they thought they were exempt.

They also indicate that excavators did place one calls, but failed to wait for the right amount of time to let marking occur.

That is another issue that we all have to deal with.  It has been a focus of CGA for some time.

So finally, so there is no formal national data.  I think PHMSA mentioned that they have had a hard time finding it.  It is one of those things that we have to resolve to do, I think all the stakeholders need to figure out the best way to cut this data.  So we have facts to work from.  It may not happen in the time frame that PHMSA needs for it to happen for their report to Congress.

But it's certainly, it should be done in the very near future.

And in the absence of national data, I'd point out, we have good examples of places where we know there are problems.  We would be disappointed if PHMSA decided because there was no national data to ignore the problem.  We can't afford to have that happen.

We had examples.  There are some exemptions that may be valid, shallow tilling, another example.  Excavation by hand, at very small depths.  But we have to be careful about those, because as we heard, maybe those homeowners are digging where they shouldn't be and causing damage.

That is the end of my comments.  I'll turn it over to the next speaker.

  (applause).

>> ANNMARIE ROBERTSON: Our next speaker is Scott Currier, he is with the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America.

>> SCOTT CURRIER: Thanks, Anne.  I want to start off here by introducing myself, I'm the director of operation safety and integrity for the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America.

We represent approximately, well, 25 member companies, making up 200,000 or so interstate natural gas transmission miles, these are pipelines typically larger diameter, higher pressure, where in the case of a leak or rupture, the incidents is very severe from the first second on.  The first seconds are very critical, and obviously excavation damage, in some of these cases causes some of these ruptures and leaks that we speak of.

So in looking at the various data sources, that I think it's actually cut off a little, I apologize for that.  Looking at some of the data sources, in preparation for this presentation, I looked at the PHMSA incident data, anecdotal data we received from our members, and informal survey we went out with, and also with the CGA and dirt data.

I'm going to present a little from some of the quadrants I have marked here.

For the PHMSA data, what is recorded in the 30 day incident reports, it is limited to, obviously, what is a reportable incident.

That is an incident that has a release of gas that results in one or more of the following.  It could be a death or injury, property damage greater than 50,000, or 3 million cubic feet or more of gas loss, or in some cases it can also be an incident that is significant in the eyes of the operator.

These results that I'm going to show in the next slide are presented for gas transmission only.  They are January, 2010 to February, 2013 data.  They are filtered by onshore excavation incidents involving farmers or a county where one call notifications were not made.

In providing those level of filters that I discussed, I came up with ten incidents that were third party excavation damage.  Out of those ten, there were actually county or farmers were listed as the excavator, and in that, of those ten, one was actually confirmed to be exempt, and in that case it was a county clearing of garbage, and I think almost as much importance is six were actually not exempt for the excavation type in the state where the incident occurred, but had they been in another state, whether a neighboring state, if this was in the West Coast, if they had been in the Midwest, it is possible that this type of excavation could have been exempt in that state.

That could be county clearing again, farmer ripping or sub soiling their field or doing some work with levees.

Three of the incidents I was unable to gather more information for in the time that we had.

Looking at PHMSA data, a lot of it required followup.  I was unable to determine whether the incident was a result of an exemption or not without going to the operator, asking additional questions.  There is no simple yes/no column in the data that allows you to determine whether or not the ex calf indicator was exempt.  Matching state exemption laws to the incidents is difficult given the great variances and the very small nuances from state to state.

I apologize for this being cut off as well.  We also went out and collected anecdotal data.  The next two slides, I show some of the stuff we received back.

In one case, state D.O.T. was exempts from one call, and during a replacement of guardrail along the Florida turnpike they used an auger and nearly missed a gas transmission main line.

In another case, a electric company was exempt from one call following a hurricane, and around 2004, 2005, basically following that hurricane the state waived the requirements for one call to expedite restoration of electric service.

Basically, a crew that was in a rush, backed over a pipeline marker, set up a bucket truck within two feet of the marker and improperly dug into a four inch lateral.  In preparing this, I thought of using this word properly and whether or not that was appropriate, and in this case it emphasizes the fact that obviously people are trying to restore service, but sometimes the decisions you make when you are hurrying, you are rushing, etcetera, are not, are sometimes not the best decisions you make.

So by no means do I think is it a reflection of the mindset of the people that were doing the work.  But I think it is very important to make the distinction.

This last one is a little long.  Basically a municipal water crew was preparing to tap a 6inch water line.  They actually had to do this in a few different locations I believe around a meter station.

The crew that was planning to do this hand digging, well, they plan to hand dig first.  They had actually met with the operator beforehand, to sort of describe the work they were going to do.  And agree on the path forward.

Halfway through, doing, I think there were four sites they had to do, halfway through they switched out the crews, and some of the workers, and basically on the third set they were doing, they actually hand dug a sixinch gas line, and mounted up a saddle to that gas line thinking it was the water line.

Basically, a local L D.C. employee drove by, and thought that, well, knew there was a gas line in the area, pulled over, stopped, saw the coating color, realized it was steel pipe and thankfully stopped them before they hot tapped into it.

Looking at this anecdotal data, it leads you to think how many incidents go unreported because they are either near misses or they don't meet the reporting thresholds.

Last of all, I looked at CGA and dirt data, where basically I reviewed dirt data from, a near hit or near miss from one of our operators that is a member.  This data is from January 2002 to December  excuse me, January, 2012 to December, 2012.

In that case there were 51 total logged near hits or misses, and I give you the breakdown here.  There is 51 total, and it was hard in looking at those to determine once again which ones were exempt and which ones were not exempt.  Rather than trying to guess and provide information that is incorrect, I want to give people the breakdown and in some cases, people would know that municipalities, county D.O.T. and farmers are certainly exempt in some states.

Last of all, a quick conclusion.  I looked at PHMSA data, anecdotal data and CGA dirt data.  In both cases of PHMSA data and dirt data, there is no yes/no column that allows you to determine what they are exempt.  It requires a lot of followups.  That is something that we have room to improve on going forward.

It is as Peter mentioned as well, the anecdotal is very important in this discussion.  A lot of times it doesn't meet some of the incidents or near hits or near misses don'ts meet the reporting thresholds, yes they are very important like the one I just brought up of basically someone mounting a tapping saddle to a gas line, high pressure gas line for that, and being ready to drill into it.

So appreciate the opportunity to talk to you guys today.  And I guess you have the next presenter.

  (applause).

>> ANNMARIE ROBERTSON: Thank you for that.  I want to reiterate that PHMSA will be analyzing our own incident data, and probably going back a little bit farther, but you are right, it is a thin data set.  It is going to be challenging to overlay the exemptions for each state, because it is not readily apparent in each occasion.  Bob Kipp, president of Common Ground Alliance.

>> BOB KIPP: Thank you for inviting, I recognize a lot of faces here.  It is a good opportunity to speak about what the CGA has been doing.  Before I start with a fairly formal presentation because I'll be dealing with best practices, which are very specific and unique, a couple of comments.

Those of us who deal on a national basis up here have been dealing with anecdotal situations and trends and patterns.

Those who are dealing with states' specific information like Masoud and JD have got really good data, because if you ask JD about his specific state, there is a law in Colorado that enables him to gather that data and to make very good findings, good conclusions.

Masoud has nine exemptions.  He can tell you why, he can tell you the damage, the trends, what they need to do and where to go.

I really encourage anybody who has anything to do with their state and their state regulations to have a good look and try and get more damage data regulated into your state.  Everybody hates regulation these days but goodness, how do you know why you are going if you don't know where you have been.  The old saying.  It is critical that we have that knowledge to enable us to decide what is right for our states.

Having said that, the CGA mission and you can read it up there, that was redone this year or last year when we did our strategic plan.  It is very specific.

We are basically down to finding ways to reducing excavation damages.  That is our vision.  That is our mission.  That is where we are going.  That is what everyone drives for.

CGA's best practices, which I'll talk to in a second, regarded utilized preeminent and trusted resource for underground damage prevention.  It began in 1998, 1998, 162, some of you in the room worked on the study.  The key thing about a best practice is it's done on a consensus basis.

You have got sixteen stakeholder groups representing all of your industries, and those who have been on the committee know, they will debate every word.  I'm not going to sit here and interpret the words of those practices.  You do that.

These people have debated these words and they don't all agree 100 percent with them, don't all love these practices, gosh, some of them really barely can live with them.  Key words.

These are the practices that you can live with.  That is your organization, your industry, your industry, the industry you represent can live with those words.  They may not love them but they can live with them.  That is how you reach consensus.

One call facility locate requests, which is a best practice, I think it is 3.1.  Not sure if I can say that.  The excavator requests the location of underground facilities at each site by notifying the facility owner, operator through the one call center.

Unless otherwise specified in state law, the excavator calls the one call center no more than ten working days prior to beginning excavation.  I'm not going to interpret, unless to say unless as specified in state or provincial law.  You have issues there.  Each law is different.  We are not going to tread on state laws.  We hope that the states do their thing, find the best way, what is good for them and unless specified there, we say you call.

What is a excavation?  Any operation using nonmechanized or mechanized equipment  it is defined in our glossary.  Who is an excavator?  It is a slippery slope when you say homeowner.  Do you say fence post digger, landscaper, road builder?  You can go on and on.

You just say any person proposing to or engaging in excavation or demolition work.  That is who excavators are.  That is our definition of who should call.

Who should belong to the one call center?  Which infrastructure owners should belong to one call centers?  There is a lot of infrastructure out there, a lot of people, lot of companies, lot of organizations owning infrastructure.

That is a very complex best practice.  They started this in  '98.  They tabled it in  '99.  Didn't reach resolution.  Came back at it in 2001, or 2 or 3.  Tabled it again.  Came back at it.  I believe in 2008 or 9 they got a resolution to it finally.  These words were very very difficult for everyone to agree to.  But I'll let you read them.  Just to say, very difficult and quite an accomplishment by the best practices committee to find words that everyone could live with.

Having said that, that is the statement, and I'm sure most of you read it by now, there is the description.

It can go on and on, and they did find some words that they can again all agree to, to describe who should belong or which operator owner should belong to the one call center.  It needed a lot of definition.  Again this committee worked years in effect to come up with these words.

The best practices are found on line at Common Ground Alliance.com.  You can download our 10.0 version.  It is updated every year.  We just handed out about 1,000 this week.  They just came, they were published this week.  Surprisingly, from what I'm told from the folks here, we had quite a run on them.  People wanted the best practices more than ever.  They want to see what is in there.  It was never intent that they become law.

But in a lot of places they have, especially in places where there are unique conditions that required fixing, and they have decided that sometimes the best practices is the easy way to go or the best way to go.  Shouldn't say easy but best way to go.  Again more of the description for the specific best practice.

Again, approved relatively recently.

Damage information reporting tool.  I thought I'd give you one slide on that.  The 2011 is the most recent publication, we are gathering data now from 2012.  We close on March 31 and hopefully will have that report out later this year.

But of the major conclusions in 2011, it showed that less than 1 percent of excavation preceded by one call notification experiences damages.

In other words, you call, and the folks in this room who work in this industry will make sure that whatever they need to do is done right, and in less than 1 percent of the time, there is a damage, if a call is made.

The problem is, 26 percent of the damages, there are no calls made.  And that is what we still continue to fight.  When we first created the CGA in 2000, 2001, I remember going around because there is no data.  There was just no data.  Companies had their data but that was it.

I'd speak with people in various companies, whether it was AT&T or Verizon or Center Point energy or didn't matter which, Washington gas, and they would give me their data.  I'd ask them the question:  How many of your damages was there no call made?  They would say 45, 50, 55.  It was always around that 50,55 mark.  When I testified in 2002 before the Congressional subcommittee, and we asked for a three digit number, actually it was in 2001 we testified.  Doesn't matter.  2001, 2002.

They said, what is the rate?  We said about 50 percent.  Where did you get that information?  Yikes.  Well, I got that from speaking to people.  Well, what do you mean from speaking to people?  Well, that is all we had.  The industry had no damage data.  Each company had their own, but nobody was gathering damage data to come out as a industry and say we need this.

Thankfully the subcommittee agreed to it, and in 2001 or 2 they signed it into law.

Eventually, we got, it took five years to get 811, because of a number of processes that had to be followed.  But that said, that was a big, big accomplishment to get 811 and to be able to reduce 62 one call numbers down to one number in effect.  And get everybody working on the same page with respect to calling before you dig.

26 percent result of no call made, and the gas distribution side was 29 percent in that same year.  That means some of the other industries are faring a little better on that side.  Not an issue with a fault of gas distribution, they happen to be the ones that got hit for those who didn't make the call.

There is the pie chart.  There is the other issues that we see.  This is on gas distribution.  29 percent notification not made, as I mentioned.  Locating practices, not sufficient.  20 percent.  That is basically saying that when the locator is out there, maybe locating the wrong facility or maybe missed a piece of the facility.  Or there may be other issues, and it just didn't get done.  And a damage resulted from it.

Excavation practices, it could be that they didn't hand dig when they should have.  It could be a variety of different other excavation practices, that weren't done.  Those are broken down in the record to a greater detail, gas distribution report, to quite a detail.  It enables people to target what are our real issues?

Is exemption an issue?  We don't have a lot of data on exemptions I'm sorry to say.  But we do have other data and enables the companies and the industries to look at that, and come up with some solutions.

I'd like to show this slide because this is, I showed it yesterday at the annual meeting, this is not a big company, PG, Portland general electric, in Oregon.  This company had, although they were running 250, 260 damages, Patty on our board, one of the key people and proponents of damage prevention, they adopted the best practices, they started, did everything by the book, if you wish.

You can see their damages, the red line running 250 in 2005, 2000 six, and their locates and these are times they have to send people out to locate their lines, were running in the, I think 120,000, 140,000 range.  I don't have my glasses on.  That range.

In 2007, started to come down a little as we started to go into a recession.  Their damages were coming down somewhat too.

Then we introduced 811 in 2007.  That company and Oregon, the one call center in Oregon, really publicized 811.  They generated an awful lot of publicity to get people to call before digging.

Even in the face of recession, you see the locates going up.  Not the activity, not the construction activity going up, but the number of people calling started to go up.  Locates went up not dramatically, but you can see 120, 140 range, and their damages started to drop dramatically.

Patty is proud to say that last year they had 59 damages.  There is a company that went from 260 damages per year to 60 last year.  Do the right things, you find out your problems, you publicize, get people to call and that is what happens.  Thanks.  And to the next speaker.

  (applause).

>> ANNMARIE ROBERTSON: Thank you, Bob.  We have two more speakers before we start taking questions from this panel.  Craft your questions in your head and feel free to come up to the microphone, which is in the middle of the room when we are finished with the presenters.  Our next presenter is Jemmie Wang, with United States infrastructure corporation, large locating corporation in the country.

>> JEMMIE WANG: Good morning, everyone.  I'm Jemmie Wang with U.S. IC.  I'm also one of the cochairs of the CGA data committee that produces the report that is relevant as you will see in a sec.

First, Sam, this is not a sales pitch.  This is again, will be relevant in a sec.  USIC, largest locating company in the U.S., we have more than 4200 locaters in 31 states, one Canadian province.

We do 100,000 damage investigations a year.  Before someone jumps up and says, hey, you guys are pretty bad at what you do because there is 100,000 damage investigations, very small percent of that is actually what, in Bob's presentation, locating practice is not sufficient.  Okay.  So vast majority of those are other, all right.

But guess what happens if we don't investigate all 100,000?  Right?  All 100,000 become locating practices not sufficient.

We investigate all 100,000 damages that are brought to our attention.

Another point that is relevant is that not all 100,000 are pipeline or gas damages.  Fortunate for a lot of people in this room.

My presentation is going to be mostly from a quantitative person's perspective, just looking at the damages data.  The only statement I'm going to make about exemptions is, we USIC are not sure what the value added is in having this one extra if/then statement, ifthen decision that people have to make about exemptions.  Do I need to call, do I need to make, get a one call ticket or not.

Of these 100,000 damage investigations, we submitted all of these into the CGA dirt report.  It is pretty high quality damage investigations.  Again, because we have literally money on the line for a lot of these, and these damage investigations possess in many cases very detailed narrative of what happened, or what we believe happened.

So it's very high quality.  It is, these data submissions were, possessed the highest DQI or damage quality index in the dirt report of any stakeholder.

Because again, a lot of these, not a lot of these, very small, very small percent get to that point, right?  But if necessary, USIC uses these in a court of law.  These correspond to about 17 million one call tickets over oneyear period.

We have a lot of tickets and damage investigations in our database.

Again, this is from a kind of quants perspective.  Challenge number 1:00 data points per state.  100,000 damage investigations over 31 states and one province, averages to about 3,000 per year.

Just an estimate, of the 3,000, approximately 750 are of no notification made in a typical state.

So, how did we data mine, and analyze these 750 at each state?  How many of these 750 are actually because of, they didn't make the call and there was a damage, and they didn't make the call because of an exemption?  Let me go into that a little deeper.

Let's say a homeowner damages a gas line.  And he or she did not make a call.

Do we know, do we know that he or she did not make the call because of an exemption?  Or was it just common negligence?

I don't know.  Even with the data we have, we just don't know.  This goes to a point someone else made about following up on each and every one of these, very very difficult.

So, a lot of these, we think if we really want to analyze this, we might have to group them into buckets of states.  Like these five states have this exemption, and these 25 do not.

What percent, what percent of damages with no notification made were of this variety in these five states, and what percent in these other 25, right?

Because let's say, again, I'm just making this up, let's say 10 percent of the 750 in these, in one state, is homeowner, digging on their own property, right?  That might seem like a lot or it might not.

I don't know if that is a lot.  I don't know intention.  So I have to probably compare that with some other states.  That number in and of itself may not be indicative of what caused the no call.

Once you peel away the onion, you get into some really, really serious kind of statistics PhD type analysis.

So, challenge number 2 is, here is an example of an exemption in Tennessee.  I'm not singling out Tennessee.  It was, I was going over this one night, it is like hey, this is kinds of interesting.  This is exemptions from Tennessee.  Not including the digging of holes for fence posts on private property, any area that is not located within a recorded easement of an operator, blah blah blah, within a hundred feet of the edge of pavement of a street or highway.

How would you even begin to quantify how many damages to gas lines were due to this because of no call, and the no call was because of this exemption.  If you did this analysis, you would have to go into GIS data of where is the street, where is this, where is the easement, where's that.

It's what we call a boil the ocean project.  Not impossible, but I'm just setting the stage of what, if we want to go down that path, what is necessary.  It is not, I'm going to spend a couple of hours and here is the answer.

The analysis, key point, analysis has to be very sophisticated and probably very complex.

Here is my very weak tentative possible conclusions.  The narrative and other free text fields from the damage investigations may be needed.

Why do I bring that up?  Because in the dirt report, there is a field for other text.  I'm not sure how often that is filled out for these 220,000 damages a year that are submitted to the dirt report.

Another key point here is that the dirt report, the dirt data, and even USIC's 100,000 pretty detailed damage investigations, really none of those were, none of those, the data fields in those two databases were set up for the purposes of examining exemptions.  Right?

So, what that means is, really, it's going to be very challenging.  I'm not saying it's impossible.  It is going to be very challenging to get at how many, how many damages did the exemptions cause, because these two databases were not set up specifically for that.

So because they were not set up specifically for that, the simple radio box checkoffs in these two large databases, may be insufficient given the permutations of the exemptions.

So, there may be, we may need to do a lot of really advanced data mining of a lot of free text fields.  Like I said, I don't know, I don't have access to the free text fields of the 220,000 dirt incidents.  I don't know how many of those actually have text in them.  Some general exemptions I think, example, quoteunquote farmer may require less ocean boiling.  We may be able to do analysis like these 20 states have, I'm making this up, have a level 3 farmer exemption, these 17 states have a level 2 and these other states don't have an exemption.  And what are the percent, percents of damages due to no notification made, in these various states, how do they vary.  Do a analysis on that.

The next point is some exemptions may require analysis of GIS data.  Not impossible but again boil the ocean.  Some exemptions may require details not available in the damage investigations like depth.  Probably hitormiss.  No pun intended on the damage investigations, because I think there's probably not a radio box, not a check box, probably not a dropdown on a lot of these databases.

This is the point I brought up before, just because a damage falls into exemption X, homeowner excavating on own property with hand tools, does not necessarily mean exemption X were gone, a ticket would be called in.  We don't know if it's common negligence or ignorance.  They just didn't know, or they say, hey, I don't need to call in a ticket, because exempt.

So key point is really the scale of analysis itself, frankly, may be larger, possibly far larger than the annual dirt report itself.  



We don't know if it is common negligence or just to know or if they say, hey, I don't need to call in a ticket because I'm exempt.  So, key point is, really, the scale of analysis itself, frankly, it may be larger, possibly far larger, than the annual dirt report itself.  And again, the reason for that is the dirt report, the dirt data and the fields in that database were set up specifically for the dirt report.  No database I'm aware of that is on this kind of or on a large scale set up for the pursuit ever examining which exemptions are risking and which are not.  So, not saying it is impossible.  It's very challenging and probably something that will will require dedicated resources with some very highlyskilled dedicated resources.  Thank you.

   (Applause).

    >> ANNMARIE ROBERTSON:  Thank you.  The things you were talking about are the things that keep me up at night.  Our final speaker is Kevin Speicher the chief and safety section at the Office of Electric gas and water for the New York State Department of Public Service.

    >> KEVIN SPEICHER:  Thank you for inviting me.  To talk about exemptions and exemption data for New York, we must start talking about what we exempt.  First of all, we hand dating is exempt in any excavation done with animal power, tilling of soil, firemen and vacuum excavating.  In some cases, saw cutting and jackhammering are exempt.  That is limited exemption.  Also gathering lines are exempt from our longcall laws.  Recently through some permitting, we have brought  we required getting gathering lines based on pressure to become one call.  Members of the one call system.  New York also, through their definition of an excavator, homeowners are exempt.  We say you have to be engaged in the trade or business, which includes carrying out of excavation or demolition.  So, by extension that exempts homeowners.

    Another area, we call it the hid ep exemption  hidden exemption, in New York, underground electric from the pole to the house is the homeowner's responsibility.  So when you call for a locate for electrical, that may or may not be marked out.  We do it as the homeowner owns it.  That's the same with sewer and in some cases water.  So that does provide for some problems.  We call mythical exemptions.  This is people who are not exempt but in some cases they think they are.  Since homeowners are not required to call for a locate request, sometimes excavators digging on private property on homeowner property think they don't need to call.  That's not the case.  They do need to call.

    New York, we also allow for mechanized machinery to break pavement.  However, even though that is exempt, you do need to call in a one call ticket to do that.

    The other mythical exemption  we see a lot of, through our enforcement process, a lot of people who are grinding, stump grounding or pulling out phase with damaged facilities think they are exempt.  They are actually not exempt.

    New York data.  We have data only for the 20052012  excuse me while I go through my notes.  This is from enforcement data.  This is internal from enforcement data.  So it makes sense that we don't have a lot of data on hand, hand tool events so damages caused by hand tools.  For this timeframe, we only have two events.

    When we add in the dirt data, that goes up to 7.  And again, it makes sense since they are exempt that we are not getting all that data.  We know it probably happens more often but we just don't have the data.

    Homeowners are again our data shows zero for homeowners.  Zero damages for homeowners.  When we include dirt data, we show 277.  So it does go up a little bit.  And as far as incidents, I think that is probably a pretty good way to find out if our exemptions are good or bad or in different.  We have three thresholds incidents in the last decade.  So, our exemptions are  going by that alone, yes, but it doesn't take into account how many near miss there were or how many damages that didn't have an immediate failure but we continue to corrode because of damage and things like that.  So that is something we need to have a little bit better data ongoing forward.

    That's what I have.  Thank you.

   (Applause).

    >> ANNMARIE ROBERTSON:  Thank you Kevin and that you to all the panelists.  I know that I took some doing to pull together presentations on data as some of you had preexisting data.  Some of you had to do surveys and I appreciate the data collection efforts.  We are now going to open it up to questions.  We are here until 11:45.  If we need to be, we'll then go to lunch break and come back with the rest of our panelists.  I cannot see very well out here.  So go ahead and start F anybody has written down questions on index cards, please pass them to the center to Sam.

    >> Bring them to me.

    >> He'll read those questions if you don't feel like getting up and going to the microphone.

    >> SAM HALL: I have a couple of questions from our web viewers I thought a might read and invite the panelists to respond to.  The first comes from Jennifer Carter from Emory and sons construction in Oregon.  She asks, when defining an excavator, would any of the speakers consider a surveyor to an excavator and if so, would any the survey activities be considered exempt from the definition?  For example, driving, wood steaks or hubs less than 12 inches in depths.

This sia can issue that is occurring in Oregon and she would be interested in your perspectives on that.

>> MASOUD TAHAMTANI:  The survey activities are excavation in Virginia.

     

    >> ANNMARIE ROBERTSON:  They are not exempt?  Any other panelists responseos that?  Okay.  Let's move on to the next question.

    >> SAM HALL: The second question comes from HARESH with the state of New Jersey.  Do we have any data regarding damages to master meter facilities?

    >> MASOUD TAHAMTANI:  Damage to all pipelines, gathering lines, you name it, are reported to us for investigation.  So we have data.

    >> ADA does not.

    >> KEVIN SPEICHER:  We do not have master meters in New York.

    >> JEMMIE WANG:  I'm sure of 100,000, there is some in there.

    >> SAM HALL: That concludes the questions from our web viewer audience.  We have a queue forming here.

    >> Terry boss with enter state natural gas association.  Jemmie, you mentioned about analyzing the data and some of the frustrations that were spoken about in the audience.  One thing that we have been looking at is an explicit radio box in the dirt forms or other forms on that.  I'm curious about your thoughts.  Really when the investigation is being done at that time, and I realize that there may be legal implications out there, but if somebody is left in their own thinking on why they didn't call, they might say it was an exemption or I just didn't call.  It really doesn't matter if they are exempted or not.  It's really the reason why they didn't call at the time when they did it.  That's the important information.  So, I'm wondering your thoughts, if we had a box like that, really tailored where you ask the person, well, why did the not contact or something like that?

    >> JEMMIE WANG:  I think it that is an interesting idea.  So, often  probably more often than not, the person filling out the damage information either in dirt or  certainly for our internal database  and you understand, was not the person who did the excavation.  So, the person filling out the form would have to ask, hey, why didn't you call?  And as you alluded to, the person might say, I might be liable so I'm not talking anymore.  Why would I tell you why I didn't call?  So then, there might be a speculation on the part of the person entering the data.  So, it could help or it could be a garbage in and garbage out situation.  It's an interesting question and I haven't pondered it more before this session.  It could be one or the other.  I'm not decided on which one it will be.

    >> MASOUD TAHAMTANI:  Let me comment.  I think if you put people in the field to become attorneys and decide what is an exemption?  Fix the definition and all that, you're going to mess up the data.  You have to have people to understand that there are investigators that understand what the language means and how it is applied consistently.  Like, Bob said, to get quality data, in our case we investigate every single pipeline accident it's my staff that determines whether it is an exemption involved and then on top of that, there is a body of stakeholders appointed by, under the law, by three judges that then review every one of those findings.  And then, the data is collected.  So, we have to be cautious about having people check the box as an exemption that's why I didn't call.

    >> BOB KIPP:  I'll address it from a homeowner's perspective.  We did a survey two years ago and two years before that.  And we took a statistically valid sample across the U.S.

If you ask them why they didn't call in the past or why they wouldn't call, you get a good range of reasons.  I know where everything is.  I'm not digging deep enough.  It's only a mailbox.  It's only a tree.  There is a whole series of reasons.  The encouraging thing that came out of that survey, and again, this is homeowners, people who  who plan to dig.  In 2008, after the survey concluded we asked them, the next time you do a project that requires digging, will you call?  And in 2008, only 49% of the homeowners said they would.  In 2012, that was 82%.  So, the message is getting out there.  It's not 100%.  We love it to be 100.  But the message that the industry is putting out, you should call before you dig, it is getting out there.  And then let the state laws or The One Call Center laws determine whether or not they really need to.  But we got to get people to call.  So it's getting better.  It's still a lot of work to do.

    >> I have a twopart question.  One is of AnnMarie and the second is to the panel.  AnnMarie, I understand that there is a congressional mandate to do a report back to Congress on exemptions and their impact, specifically looking at data.  When was that due?

    >> ANNMARIE ROBERTSON:  January 3, 2014.

    >> To the panel, we had a lot of really excellent presentations.

Thank you.  What I heard was that there is not a lot of national data that we have individual buckets of data.  I would like to understand if you have any proposals or suggestions or ideas on how PHMSA can gather data to form a report we must deliver in nine months.  We are struggling with that issue.  I did hear one from Jemmie Wang about bucketing states of similar exceptions and comparing to data in those states.  But any other ideas would be very welcome and appreciated.

    >> ANNMARIE ROBERTSON:  Any of the panelists have ideas?

    >> MASOUD TAHAMTANI:  I'll make your job easy, Linda.  Just use Virginia's data and tell them that every exemption we have, with the exception of homeowner, is good.

    >> JEMMIE WANG:  I'm not sure my point  we didn't have national data.  USA is in 31 states we have 100,000.  May main point was, if we wanted to tease out the conclusions from that data that might help answer some of these exemptions, I'm somewhat  let's say I'm 60% confident we can get some conclusions.  But it would require a huge amount of effort.  So what do we have?  Nine months?  So the question would be, how much funding does PHMSA have for 

    >> ANNMARIE ROBERTSON:  I'm not answering that.

    >> JEMMIE WANG:  For analysis.  So it's not just data, right?  The word out here was mainly data, right?  Damage data sources.

    >> ANNMARIE ROBERTSON:  The law of data analysis.

    >> JEMMIE WANG:  Right.  So I think we probably have a lot of data but the analysis is going to require  that's an oceanblowing effort.  And it's going to depend on how much funding PHMSA has for that analysis.  And we don't have the data.  So I'm 60% confident we can get something out of there with a lot of work.

    >> ANNMARIE ROBERTSON:  We have been talking about options internally for how to tackle this.  We could use the representative steaks.  Masoud collected data and you'll hear from a couple other states that have data.  But to glean national conclusions based on selected states, is touchy.

We are talking about maybe we want to form a working group to see what each association, each stakeholder group can contribute.  Or is interested in contributing.  I'm curious by a show of hands.  How many others in the room have been collecting data knowing that we have an exemption thing hanging over our heads?  Anybody?  I see a few.  A few.  So you may be hearing from me in the future as we plan our path forward.

    >> BOB KIPP:  If I could jump in, it's very difficult to use example states.  If you look back to the dirt data reports in 2004, 5 and 6  Jemmie can correct me.  We used census data from a couple of states where we had census data.  Colorado, Connecticut, main one or two others.  And then you start to use either population or construction dollars or miles of plant, and you extrapolate and come up with number of damages you estimate you have across the country.  And then, 2009 and 10 came along and we got census data from a couple of other states and that totally thunder things around.  All of a sudden all the assumptions we made for the first six or seven years where we estimated 450,000 damages  this is all in fra structure  across the U.S. in 2004 and then declining in 2005 and by 2009, we had it down to something like 162,000 damages, something of that nature.  And then boom, all of this other data comes along and we get more submissions from one of our major stakeholder groups.  We get census data from others.  All things change.  And now, all of a sudden, we have gone from 162,000 damages to, we think we had 330,000 last year.  And it changes all of the numbers for preceeding years.  So now we are looking at trying to look backwards with what we had and we estimate the range in 2004 at somewhere between 720,000 and 900,000 damages.  We still see a great decline in the number of damages, but now the bar has been shifted because we have more data.  And these guys are far more expert at that than I am.  But if you pick one state, goodness, you have to say what percentage of pipe does that state have relative to the country?  What is the population?  What is the construction activity?  It is extremely difficult.

    And like Jemmie says, how big is your budget?

    >> JEMMIE WANG:  That's my my presentation, I am one of the cochairs of the data committee because I was involved in this.  That's my point of reference.  That's why I said this effort, if we want to tackle it, we probably will require more, possibly far more, analytical resources than what was involved in the dirt report.

    >> ANNMARIE ROBERTSON:  Any other comments from the panel on this question?

    >> Terry Voss will be talking about our suggestions as well so rather than discuss it directly, he'll be talking from our perspective about that.

    >> I think there was an opportunity to piece meal some information together.  I don't think you will be able to give, in my opinion, I don't think you will be able to give Congress a 100% clear picture on exemptions between now and the timeframe date you have.  That said, I think you could piece meal together some information, and I think you have a variety of sources you could potentially use.  You do have some pretty good state data that gives you a piece of the puzzle.  I know that I can commit for AGA if there are particular states that you're interested in honing in on, I can reach out to operators within those states to see what data they have collected internally and that they are willing to share with PHMSA.  I may have to aggregate it all for you.  So don't give any particular operator any heart burp but we are willing to do that.  And I have to believe that  you're not going to get to the mindset of the individuals, but what you you can find out is where are things?  Where do the exemptions exist that also have damages?  I don't think you will get to, did they not call?  Did they not take action because of the exception?  But at least you can say, where were the exemptions and where did the damages convert?

    >> ANNMARIE ROBERTSON:  Thank you.

    >> PETER LIDIAK:  I agree with what Christine just said.

I think we can piece meal the data together.  In the nine months we have, we have already collected some information and you can see that a member of the organizations have at least partial data.  We are hoping to get more data in from the API and AOPL numbers and we are  we will be able to provide that once we do more cleanup on it and maybe aggregation as Christine said.  But I want to stress something else again, and you know, Masoud's experience in Virginia is different than what we are seeing from the data we have collected.

    So it's not just homeowners based on the information we have.  And so, it's good to have systematic data collected on every single instance if you have it.  We don't have that right now.  Again, we have to look at all our data sources and that does include the antidotes, the stories and not the numbers and decimal points but the things we heard about from operating companies from contractors, from others.

    So we need to collect as much of that data as we can and I think everybody who is here has an interest in making it safer.  I know Scott Barry is up later.  I don't believe the contractors have any interest in causing damage or having their employees injured in an accident.  So we have a common cause here and I think that we should be able to get some data that will help you with your report.

    >> CHRISTINA SAMES:  Anne Marie, just one other point F your results are anything else like what we found from our informal survey.  I think what you're going to see is exemptions work in some areas for certain states and they don't work in others.  Which means I don't think there is  again I'll say it.  I don't think there is a national exemption that could be allowed because I do see where it is varying all over the place based on the informal survey we did.

    >> ANNMARIE ROBERTSON:  Thank you, Christina.  We have more questions.

    >> Thank you.  Mike rush with the association of American railroads.  I have two questions.  My first is of Peter.  It's been years since we have spoken.  Keeping in mind the admonition to focus on activities as opposed to status, which was very wise advice, your statistics shows three railroad incidents.  Do we know what those activities were in those railroad incidents?

    >> PETER LIDIAK:  I don't have those details with me today.  So we can go back and look at those.  But I think the point is exactly that.  And I think on my slide, you saw how do we define routine maintenance?  I think that there is that consideration and we have said in some draft proposals we put out for states, we don't like exemptions but we also recognize that some exemptions probably are going to be there and there are ways to focus on them.  I think  a couple of people said it and I think I agree with that too.  Categorical exemptions for any class of excavator, I think are a bad idea.  But I think looking at specific activities that are ones that are lowrisk, that is probably the direction we have to go if we are going to accept exemptions.  Again, categorical exemptions, I think a bad thing.

    >> My second question, actually, would have been for J.D.  But I want to ask the question.  He had statistics up there showing exemptions for certain categories, including railroads.  At this point, the question I would have asked him, I know what the answer would have been.  But the question I would have asked J.D. would be, various statistics show for explicit state exemptions only, correct?  And J.D. would have said yes.  Because even the the majority of states don't have exemptions for routine activities, there is no state in which, that I'm aware of, in which railroads are reporting for routine maintenance activity.  I want to clarify the point in what J.D.'s statistics were.

    >> ANNMARIE ROBERTSON:  Thank you.  We have gone to great extent to try to understand the exemptions within each state's one call law.  We have that information published on our website.  We are continually reaching out to the states to make sure we have correct information and we classified them as notification exemptions and membership exemptions.  Certainly within each of those exemptions as you seen in the slides, there is a lot of variety.  So thank you for your comment.

Next?

    >> Good morning.  My name is sue  with the utilities commission.  Just really more clarification than a question.  Christine with AGA indicated it would be okay with some exemptions okay if no risk.  Again, since this is a public forum and we are talking about membership exemptions as well as notification exemptions, if you could perhaps clarify that as far as are you referring them more to membership than notification and perhaps in the case of notifications, the type of emergency digs where those are in most one call's exemptions?

    >> CHRISTINA SAMES:  It gets to what does the data tell us?  And in order to make an informed decision, I believe that we have to have the data that proves that an exemption is not causing an issue.  And that covers all categories.  So, if I  I just personally believe that in order for us to determine where exemptions may be acceptable and where they may not, we really need to get a better handle on what is occurring, because I'm the last one that wants an incident occurring to a pipeline.  And I think most people in this room feel the same way.

    >> ANNMARIE ROBERTSON:  Thank you.  Next?

    >> Good morning.  Florida gas transmission company.  Scott gave us a couple of examples of what could help in the event of exemption laws and pipeline industry.  We hold to a higher standard regulated by the federal Department of Transportation and some of our pipelinessor private easement and some are on DOT easement.  With that being said, we are kind of held by a standard where when we are putting DOT easement, it's kind of an open playing field there.  Where the exemptions for hand digging around us, that could compromise the coding on our pipe, and also when we procure the pipeline along the DOT pipeline rightofway, we don't know what happened in that area.  It's disturbed and they could have dug down twofour feet.  No communication between other utilities and high priority subservice transmission lines.  So maybe we could just identify areas where we share rights of way with DO.

And public county roads and just make those areas nonexempt, or remove the exemptions.  And that will kind of isolate some of those possibilities or indents from occurring.  Level the playing field and give us a better chance of safeguarding our pipeline.  Thank you.

    >> ANNMARIE ROBERTSON:  Thank you.  I can tell you that we are reaching out to the state DOTs as part of this effort.  We have sent a letter through their trade association, American association of safety transportation officials.  We are reaching out to them to talk about this issue.  We are also reaching out to each state DOT chief to bring this matter to their attention.  So, as a first step from our perspective, we are engaging the state DOTs.  Does anybody on the panel want to address DOT or shared rightofways with the government penalties?

    >> KEVIN SPEICHER:  We have done a lot with the DOTs in New York.  It used to be that the attitude is you're in my rightofway, I don't need to call.  So we found through a lot of education, we have gotten to the point where they are actually an integral part of damage prevention.  So they are calling and it's helping.

    >> ANNMARIE ROBERTSON:  Great.  Next?

    >> Paul metro from Pennsylvania Program Manager.  I have a question for Linda.

   (Laughter)

Linda, many states have exemptions for gathering lines, class 1 gathering lines and production lines.  That's because these lines are not jurisdictional with PHMSA.  Do is there a any idea how to correct that problem?

    >> Linda: Seriously, we recognize that any pipeline facility whether regulated or unregulated, if it is Schmidt damaged, could cause a danger to the public.  So there is an issue out there that needs to be addressed.  However, unregulate the pipelines are unregulated pipelines and we are, while we are working to try to include more of those gathering lines under federal regulation, we do hope that the states who are more agile and flexible and quicker than the Federal Government 

    >> ANNMARIE ROBERTSON:  Keyword.

    >> Linda: Keyword, quicker 6789 might be able to address these issues.  I think someone on the panel, maybe Christina, pointed out that damage prevention activities are really a huge issue that maybe should stay with the states.  I mean, you know what is in your states better than the Feds do.  And so, maybe that was Bob Kipp, I'm not sure.  But we would like to encourage states to be aggressive and reach out with their damage prevention laws and try to get everybody to participate in very safe digging practices.

    >> ANNMARIE ROBERTSON:  Kevin, do you have a followup?  Did you have success in bringing gathering lines into your program?  I think I heard you speak to that a little bit.

    >> KEVIN SPEICHER:  Yes, in New York, gathering lines are jurisdictional to us, the Department of Public Service, from about 50 feet from the well.  The well head separator.  So they are jurisdictional to us.  They are exemption from the law.  However, new pipelines at high pressure need to come in for permits and part of the permitting process, we have been requiring one call membership, both as in operator and in excavator.

    >> ANNMARIE ROBERTSON:  Next?

    >> Thomas bane, state facilities engineer for Florida and DOT.  And I had some concern when I heard this word that we are going to start looking at with holding grants because of exemptions.  And the Department of Transportation is dreamt a lot of things.  We don't have to be notified by from one call because it would be reDunn dent.  We have a permit system.  It's illegal to do work in the state rightofway unless they notify us.  And the fact that you would have that exemption, so it wouldn't be a redundancy, wouldn't be something you would with hold a grant for.  So, I think we use the word, exemption, way too liberally.  And because the Department of Transportation has exemptions but every one of our contractors, by our contract, has to abide by the sunshine 1 call and give notification and have our permitees have to notify all the other utilities by permit and those are all requirements that are necessarily built in and that is why we enjoy some of these exemptions.  And I know you can bring up a lot of horror stories and I would doubt that you could really count a failure of an exemption to that after you Tline it.  So I was just concerned that we would be with holding money away from people from making good decisions these exemptions.

    >> ANNMARIE ROBERTSON:  Thank you.

    >> And that really wasn't a question.  It was a question if anybody would agree with me or not.

   (Laughter).

    >> ANNMARIE ROBERTSON:  That's why we are here.  The issue of a grant eligibility is something that came directly out of our most recent congressional reauthorization.  So, we looked or attempted to look at the laws very narrowly and keep as many states eligible for these grants as possible.  Also the idea hopefully the states will be looking at their exemptions and understanding what works and what doesn't work and hopefully we'll learn more today and as we go forward, other initiatives will complete this study.  But, thanks.

    >> Real quick, I would agree with you that no damage was done to the line in that case.  The ant eck total piece that is I provided were more or less just to give people an idea of what is out there and what has occurred.  And they were ordered in large severity or what could be viewed as consequence incidents potentially higher.  I would agree with your characterization on that.

    >> ANNMARIE ROBERTSON:  Thanks.  Rick?

    >> Rick law, AGL resources.  I guess earlier we talked about the homeowner and handing exemptions and I guess my question or first my observation is, if we were to do away with that exemption and move it, I believe that moves just the discussion of what you should call  whether you should call before you dig from the exemption side to the enforcement side.  My question for the panel is, do you all envision if you did away with that exception that we would or would not enforce against individual homeowners?

    >> ANNMARIE ROBERTSON:  Behold like to take that question?

 who would like to take that question?

    >> BOB KIPP:  Is it really up to the state?  A lot of states don't enforce against homeowners.  Even those that do, it's typically a letter.  The penalty is different.  But from our perspective, you call before you dig and if the state law says you have to call, you call.  One Call Center can determine whether or not you should or should not get it marked.  That will be up to them and based on their regulations and rules and their practices.  So, back to the state.

    >> CHRISTINE SAME:  I agree with Bob on this one.

If you look at what is done on the state level, it's various grades of enforcement which typically start with a letter, attempt to educate further.  If my assumption is the homeowner does this once, then I'm also going to assume that letter and additional information may educate the homeowner not to do it again.  Personally, if I had a homeowner that was doing it multiple times, I'd probably want enforcement action begins them but I think it would be at the state level.

    >> KEVIN SPEICHER:  Right now homeowners are exempt.  If they were not, they would file the same enforcement protocols as anybody else.  Like you said, idealy, the first offense you may want to try to educate but they would be subject to the same enforcement as anybody else.

    >> Certainly appreciate it.  I think it's an important issue that we have got to figure out where we want to go and if you're unwilling to go down that path, then removing the exemption may do you no good because you're insteading doesn't differentiate the exceptions, usually.

    >> PETER LIDIAK:  I think an important point one made by one of the other folks with questions.  Hand digging can still create problems and the homeowner with a spade can do damage to pipe coating that, even if it doesn't cause an accident right away, it can result in an accident down the road.  And so, you have to be very careful about how you structure what you're going do to with the homeowners.

And that's just because there is a lot at risk.  With pipelines, not necessarily with all of the at all times, but certainly with pipelines.  And electrical too.  We heard one of the speakers this week, a gentleman who had about 300,000 volts going through him.  That is a pretty big risk.

    >> ANNMARIE ROBERTSON:  I think we have time for one more question.  We have about 5 minutes.

    >> My name is Jeb glee son in Ohio.  My question is specific to the dirt report and how that effects the data collection process.  It seems like the excavating community, the contractors, have been by their own fault, maybe underrepresenting things that are going on in terms of statistics with respect to the dirt report.  So my question is, has there been a formal appeal made to maybe the insurance industry to solicit statistics from insurance carriers that would facilitate getting better information from the excavating community?

    >> BOB KIPP:  We appealed to everybody.  And we have somebody from traveler's on our board and very familiar with what we request, dealing with the construction industry.  I met with the Hartford.  So we absolutely ask everyone who has any sort of information to provide it to us.  And from there, you just give it to the statistical analyst and is the construction underrepresented in terms of what they report?  No doubt.  It is a very  the nature of the industry is such that the folks are less apt to report.  But even within that industry you'll find AGC and some of our members really pushing their guys to get your reports in and get your reports in.  Obviously, the more the information we have, the better information we have, the better decisions we make.  We asked everybody, please provide us as much damage data as you can.

    >> I know one of the challenge system with the insurance industry and I don't want to throw them under the bus but it's proprietary.  It's perceived as proprietary information.  And I know another comment I heard is that the information could be used by federal agencies and things like that to come back.  I think we all have a lay ir of fear we need to peel back and say, we all have something to gain.  We have more to gain by sharing information.

    >> BOB KIPP:  On the confidential side.  We have done a pretty good job of that.  You see GE, they gave me permission to use that.  Really have not to my knowledge, divulged any information from anyone to anyone they can remember.  And we probably have by now, close to 700,000, 800,000 reports in our database.  Never been subpoenaed.  There is a fear.  No doubt.  I know one major, major company that could provide us with damage data.  Our concern that it could be used against them in a competitive environment versus a regulatory environment, that somehow the statistics might get out and some company would say I'm better than you, therefore why don't you get your services from me.  That's one of the issues.  On the insurance side, there are issues related to dealing within the industry.  But I'm not sure damage data is one of those.  And we certainly try and get the message across that safety should not be something that is proprietary.

    >> ANNMARIE ROBERTSON:  Thank you.  I believe there was one last question.  Did you get your question answered?  We can probably take that real quickly.  I hate to have one person not ask their question.

    >> Can I say something about that.

    >> Please, go ahead.

>> JEMMIE WANG:  I think the excavators are underrepresented but from a gear head perspective, that may be more that they tend to be smaller.  So the smaller utilities and smaller whatever stakeholder, also tend to be underrepresented.  If you had excavators in 31 states or in 40 states like some telecommunications companies or whatever, I'm sure you would get more.  So it's not that they are being discouraged or not encouraged enough or discriminated against or whatever.  It's just really the size is really the driver.

    >> ANNMARIE ROBERTSON: Thank you.

    >> Hi, my name is Jennifer reames with cresline Hayden excavating.  My question is with the dirt report.  How is accounting for in the reports and is there a concern this accuracy of the report of root cause could be incorrect because of it?

    >> BOB KIPP:  I'm going to give it to the gear head in a second but we can only comment on what we get.  If we can't maka assumptions on  we don't know what we don't know.  What you see is analysis of the stats or the information that is provided to us.  Pure and simple.  And we sit there and debate sometimes what should we report, what should we not report?  It really comes down to, what dot numbers say?  I don't believe there is a bias in any way shape or form.  I think it is strictly an analysis of what we have got.  And if that changes then we'll report accordingly.

    >> Thank you.

    >> ANNMARIE ROBERTSON: Thank you.

    >> JEMMIE WANG:  I agree.  I don't think there is a bias.  And the various stakeholders in the data and report, I guess we have to think about what the alternative is.  Do we have a judge, jury set up for every incident?  I'd like to use as a  don't let the  perfect is the enemy of the good.  I mean, the perfect would be yes, everyone has been adjudicated and appeals 10 times and we are just never going to get that.

    >> BOB KIPP:  And one more thing.  Before we produced the report, there are excavators sitting on the committee that we look at each and every word.  And they look at and say, is there a bias there?  Is it the wording right?  Is the wording offensive versus analytical?  And boy, Oh, boy, this committee meets week after week after week to ensure the wording is as vanilla or steril as possible.

    >> I guess my only concern is if you're reporting insufficient excavation practices and notification of or no notification to the one call, and primarily from the excavator but no data is being reported from the excavator, it's almost like the finger is pointed to the person not in the group.  I don't understand how there isn't a bias when you're reporting on a stakeholder group when they are not contributing to data.  Does that make sense?

    >> BOB KIPP:  Absolutely.  I appreciate what you're saying.  The analysis of the information we have year after year and if I can assure you that you are very well represented by some very, very good people from the excavating community on all of these committees, they've got your back.

    >> JEMMIE WANG:  I would add one more thing.  The date at submitted by I'd say pretty much all the stakeholders I know, are the actual conclusions of what happened for those incidents.  So for example, if it was excavation practices not sufficient, then through whatever course, either before court or after court, that is who probably paid.  So they are not  most of these from what I know, these submissions are not random or haphazard.  They are actually what happened.

    >> ANNMARIE ROBERTSON:  We are going to have to break for lunch.  We will have continuing dialogue this afternoon about all these issues.  I want to break and thank you very much to the panelists.  Excellent job.  Please come back at 1:00.

   (Applause)

>> LINDA DAUGHERTY:  We're going to be starting late.  I think what we'll do is go ahead and get started in the interest of time.  We know people will still filter in coming back from lunch.  As a matter of fact, we were almost late.  

So this afternoon we've got a real interesting set of panels.  Before we get started I would remind everybody about the cell phones.  If you turned them on during lunch, you might want to silence them now.  I need to do that myself when I sit down. 

Our first panel is going to be looking at the impact of exemptions on key stakeholder groups.  And we have some real great speakers to talk to us.  We have from the state pipeline safety programs we have two representatives, Randy Knepper and Don Stursma.  From one call centers we have J.D. who spoke earlier this morning, Tim Vaughn.  We also have from the excavator community we have Jennifer Reams and Scott Berry.  And facility locators we have Greg Jeffries.  We will intend to go through the panelists in that order.  Again, keep an open mind, listen to what perspectives are.  Be thinking about questions that you might have for them.  As we come up to the Q & A time.  Remember we're about open dialogue, respectful discussion.  

And with that I would like to introduce Randy Knepper.  He is the chair of the national association of pipeline safety representatives.  He also  his real job is he is program manager for the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission; thank you Randy.  

>> RANDY KNEPPER:  I'll get to this the right height here.  Thank you, Linda, for inviting us to this panel.  I'm here to put a little bit of perspective on things, on state exemptions.  Most of my comments are going to be based on behalf of the National Association of Pipeline Safety Representatives. 

So for those people in the audience that don't know me and those on the Webinar at home, so who is NAPSR?  We're comprised of state pipeline safety regulators from the lower 48states and the district of Columbia and Puerto Rico.  We have about 400 individuals.  It's a nonprofit organization.  And we comprise about 75 percent of the nation's pipeline inspection workforce.  So we oversee distribution gas pipelines and transmission gas pipelines and we have some state that's do hazardous liquids.  

We're certified through the federal government to do that.  We have a lot of technical expertise.  And most of our members are out in the field every day overseeing that.  And as far as our involvement with today's forum is many of the representatives in the state programs oversee the administrator of the state underground damage prevention programs in their state.  Not all, but many do. 

So our overall position on exemptions is, I think it's consistent with many comments that have been made previously is we're not in favor of broad, I don't know, I guess I use the word categorical exemptions for entire organizations or activities.  We don't think that that makes sense.  If you look at most of our state laws across the country, they're very limited exemptions for the majority of them, not all.  And we believe if it's got some very specific and precise language to those types of activities, it may make sense.  And when most of these things were crafted, stakeholders got together and it was crafted almost 30 years ago and we've been refining it ever since to determine what types of exemptions make sense.  A lot of it is based on just your  where you are geographically in the country.  If there's certain things that you can limit people from having to call in because utilities and especially gas pipelines aren't affected then it makes sense.  They don't want to do extra work for them.  The stakeholders if they're not impacted from a safety perspective, you need to take a look at that. 

So NAPSR as a group, we have some data but not as a aggregate, as an organization.  Individual states have pockets of data.  I'm from New Hampshire.  We have data.  I don't think we've gone through and analyzed to see what the affects of exemptions are on damages.  We could.  The data resides with us at the public utility commission.  But other states don't have the data.  The damage data goes to the onecall center.  Some states there isn't any.  But as an organization I don't think we have a collective set of data that we can share with everybody on the exemptions and the cause and affect on damages. 

So here's an example of where, you know, we don't have data to support removing certain exemptions that would decrease damages.  We kind of made that statement when we commented to PHMSA in the docket.  

You know, one state has an exemption for rock quarries.  They don't have to notify their one call center for daily activities because they're doing some type of excavation I guess.  If you consider excavation blasting and drilling and cutting.  They do that every day.  That's their business.  And there's no utilities around it.  So you know there's an exemption  does an exemption there make sense?  So there's an activity type of exemption for a particular industry.  I would be looking at that picture, it would be pretty hard probably to get a utility in there.  I would question why they're there to start with.  But, you know, the nearest utility might be miles and miles and miles away. 

Another example of some what I call limited exemptions might make sense is some states have cemeteries, exemptions for cemeteries in there.  You know, do you really want to have to require notification of the onecall center, you know, every time there's an internment.  And so, you know, hopefully there's not utilities running through those areas.  Do you really want to mark it up and put flags and paint all over the ground especially in these kind of sacred grounds.  So, you know, there might be some reasons where it might make sense.  

So, you know, the exemptions are there.  You have to kind of look and see, are you having a problem.  And I think state do's that.  Another limited exemption that's been talked about before I think was mentioned by Sam earlier is tilling for soil.  I think Don Stursma of Iowa is going talk a lot about that.  More than I am.  So you have to consider when does tilling and planting seeds turn into going into deep excavation.  So no matter what word you put down in the state law or rule, you know, it's very hard because I think when many of these states crafted this language, maybe a decade ago or two decades ago, the type of equipment that is out there now is much different.  And where is that line?  So I think you saw earlier today a lot of statistics on a lot of states have exemptions for farmers and people doing tilling of the soil for seeding.  Which is pretty limited.  It doesn't mean that the farmer can build a house or a barn or whole bunch of other activities.  It just means for his normal every day life profession would he have to call a dig safe in every day. 

We have provisions for emergencies.  They're not necessarily listed as exemptions but many utilities it was already talked about earlier you know want to be able to dig if you have a gas safety situation on a pipeline, you know, do you want to wait while you call in for notification.  Do you want to try to craft language that covers emergencies.  Because every emergency is a little different.  And so many of them allow excavation to immediately occur or you can call it in as soon as practical or some of those type of words in there.  They're really not new exemptions, but, you know, isn't that what we want to happen?  So you are trading one safety alternative for another.  And so you really have to look and see if these things are being abused and if they make sense.  So I think that's one of our  I deal with underground damage prevention.  It's one of our primary responsibilities in our state.  And I do think that some limited exemptions do make sense.  

Most exemptions are either entity based or utility based.  There's governmental ones.  There's railroads.  In some states utilities have gotten into that.  We've mentioned the gardening and tilling.  And a lot of them have exclusions for certain depths.  Specifically if you read the law between 12 to 18 inches in some states and they intermingle that with the two above, entities and activity based type.  So you do come up with a vast array of some of this language. 

So they've gone through and identified states that have the potential for losing eligibility for some grants.  One call grants and state damage prevention program grants.  Those are the two grants that could be affected by this. 

Ten states have been preliminary deemed probably ineligible.  I think it's a preliminary review or cursory review by PHMSA.  I am not so sure how in depth they looked.  But they want to start somewhere and they've identified the states that are listed there.  And then some other states, seven states were also deemed potentially ineligible.  And so, you know, that's 17 states.  That compromises almost a third of our states in the country that could lose grants.  I think PHMSA's in the process of either telling those that are potentially ineligible they're probably going be eligible.  But I'm not so sure how formal that has gone.  Most of it has just been through some communications via email.  

What got us here?  Section 60134.  That talks about those grants for one call.  I'm sorry the state damage prevention program grants.  The exact language says, you know, you cannot provide exemptions to municipalities, state agencies, or their contractors.  So that's where the grants and governmental regulations come in to play.  And they use exactly the same language in the one call section which is 6103 of the federal jobs pipeline safety regulatory certainty and job creation act of 2011.  

So question was asked us is how are these exemptions or not being eligible for some things, how is it going to impact states?  Obviously is the first impact is we're no longer eligible for the one call grants.  It's about a million dollars a year.  Might seem like not a lot of money, but in states the answer is yes it is.  And oneandahalf million dollars a year is awarded by PHMSA for the, I guess they call them STP I. Call them state damage prevention program grants and I got an extra P in there I guess. 

And, you know, how does it impact.  I think one of the things you have to look at is some states use that grant funding to partially offset their personnel cost used for the invoicement process.  So on one end you want strong enforcement.  We think that's good.  PHMSA thinks that's good.  But if you got to, you know, not be able to give the grants to do that, we could have less enforcement, not more.  Is that really a desirable outcome?  Some grants are used to promote educational awareness.  Call before you dig, the CGA 811 campaign that we're here.  Just gone done going to this conference.  So this could lead to less public awareness that use those for those type of things.  Does it make sense, and I think PHMSA struggled with this, that, you know, some states can be negatively impacted because of this language.  So I think we're trying to get through that.  

Then the last thing is is back in the previous act of 2006, you know, section two there said that if you are deemed inadequate in doing enforcement, that can affect states.  And assume they'll be ready to issue rule making very shortly I think regarding procedures and criteria for that.  They've done some advanced proposals.  And so one of the criteria that PHMSA uses for that I think is criteria seven is determining if a state program adequacy in viewing their program how are exemptions affecting that?  So it can become one factor that helps determine that.  And so states have a problem with that because if you are deemed inadequate, you could potentially lose up to ten percent of your pipeline safety grant.  And so that could definitely impact states if that happens. 

So and I think I just said that.  And that's all I have.  And I think Don from Iowa is going to talk more about some of the particulars in his state.  

Thank you.  

(Applause)



>> LINDA DAUGHERTY:  Thank you, Randy.  In the interest of time we're going keep moving.  Next speaker is done Stursma with the Iowa Utilities Board.  Also, Greg, if you are out there if you want to come up to the stage, please do so.  

>> DON:  Good afternoon.  My job for the next few minutes is to keep you awake after lunch.  And to figure out how this clicker works.  

>> DON STURSMA:  This topic list a few things I am going to talk about.  These are exemptions in the state of Iowa but they are common exemptions in some states.  So it's not just Iowa I am talking about.  I am talking about something more general.  I am talking about agriculture, the state and local government, and the public and railroads.  

Agriculture.  There are 2.2 million farms in the U.S. according to the USDA website.  And the farm tillage is considered excavation, you could have every farmer in America calling the one call center from 1 to 4 time as year when they go out to do farm work.  I think that's a little bit of a load.  And for the most part not for a useful purpose. 

According to PHMSA's website there's about 300,000 miles of natural gas pipeline in the U.S. About 183,000 miles of hazardous liquids pipelines.  And according to some comments filed with PHMSA last year, they said about 83 percent of the natural gas pipelines of their members are in class one locations.  Meaning rural.  I rounded it off to 80.  And I am going to estimate that 50 percent of that rural mileage is in tilled agriculture land.  That is not a scientific number but I think it's reasonable especially if you look at the maps and you can see where the vast majority of the pipelines are in the United States.  You will see they are going primarily in agriculture states through farm ground.  So I think 50 percent of the mileage in tilled agriculture land, if not  I don't think that's an unreasonable number.  And that comes out to 193,000 miles of onshore pipeline that would have to be flagged every time a farmer called because he is going out in the field to conduct farm work.  That's a lot of work.  That's a lot of money.  I think you have to ask yourself, is it time, effort and cash that is a worthy investment of your time?  

By the way, this does not include gathering lines.  I gathered some information on gathering lines.  I think one source says roughly 200,000 miles of them which may be 15 or 14,000 under PHMSA jurisdiction.  I didn't try to hazard a guess on how many of those are in agriculture land but you know darn well some of them are.  So that would add to the numbers.  So right now  let me back up and say, when I talk about this stuff, I am not talking about philosophy.  I am not talk about ideology.  I am talking about what is realistic, what is practical, what's worth doing, what fights aren't worth picking. 

I'm going to talk a little bit about agriculture.  And that is your classic mold board plow.  A lot of people associate that with farming.  Although it's becoming less and less prevalent as less energy intensive forms of tillage are used.  Now when somebody used moldboard plow you look at the ground and it's tore up.  This is terrible.  It really doesn't go that deep.  When I say less than 12 inches or up to 12 inches in some of these slides, that's probably as deep as it's going get barring somebody designing themselves an unusual piece of equipment.  But generally I would say you shouldn't be posing a risk to pipelines. 

Not one is the disk.  Another common one.  Again look at the field when it gets done, things are, you know, chewed up pretty good.  Better than with a plow.  But, again, less than 12 inches deep.  It's not a threat.  You will see people out there with a knifing and fertilizer.  Again, probably in the top (inaudible).  This particular one is ANHYDROUS ammonia.  There are different fertilizers or manure.  If this was a liquid mature operation they would be pulling a tank behind them that is commonly called a honey wagon.  

Normal tillers.  There's chisel plow.  This has taken over a lot.  Loosens up the soil without turning it over.  Generally less than  some models go up to 18 inches deep according to manufacturer literature.  It's basically a spring steel curvature with a tooth on the end.  It vibrates and loosens everything up. 

Okay.  We just entered a different dimension.  Now I'm not talking normal tillage anymore.  This is a soil riper.  They're used to loosen soil below what's called the plow pan which is below the depth of normal tillage or to get some deeper areas to improve drainage and soil.  And a model of this type you can get down maybe to two feet.  You are starting to get a little bit uncomfortably close to pipelines.  

And then you get things like this.  Some extreme units can go four feet or more.  Those are definitely dangerous to pipelines.  You can see that one being pulled by a caterpillar.  You know there's enough traction going on there where they'll probably pull right through a pipeline.  These are dangerous.  

Before I go on, I am going to make  show you the importance of the letter.  A lot of times we're talking about tilling.  Which is in my definitions loosen the soil to provide a seed bed and improve subsurface drainage.  As opposed to tiling which is installing a perforated pipe in the line to improve soil and moisture.  Big different.  Don't be confused when you are reading literature and you see that particular set of letters.  There's an older style wheel trencher.  Maybe up to eight feet deep.  If you look at the shiny thing on the back end, that's kind of a shield or removable shoring that keeps the trench open long enough that you can install the drain tile. 

At one time drain tile was sections of clay pipe.  Today virtually everything installed is perforated plastic pipe.  And there is perforated plastic pipe being installed.  This is being installed with a ladder or chain trencher rather than a wheel trencher.  A lot of these machines can go up to eight feet deep.  I don't know how it's showing up on that picture, but that little rod sticking up from where the tile is going in is a laser guide.  Farming like everything else is hightech anymore.  And you get out into some of the flat country you have to maintain a very controlled rate to get the tile to grade properly.  I am from Iowa.  Home of the Vemeer manufacturer.  They make really good stuff there and you should be buying lots of it. 

Now here is something new and one of the most dangerous things I've seen for pipelines.  This is what's called a tile plow.  And they go around four feet.  Which is the typical depth for tile.  And individual farmers can buy these.  They can hit pipelines.  There is a tile plow that hit a pipeline.  This really enforces the need for awareness activities to let farmers know they need to call before they do something like this.  Which, of course, lets me segue that into if you start cutting them out of grant money that covers programs you are not helping.  Here is the sheer size of the number of farms and the mileage numbers make the practicality notice and marking questionable.  I am going to tell you if the soil's right, farmers aren't going to wait two days to get out in the field.  So I don't think that's going to be very workable.  Plus I see some of the farm bureaus later today and, you know, farm organizations take an interest in something like this, well that gets interesting.  So I praise that many farming exemptions should be exempt from one call call in requirements.  Drain tile inlacing and (inaudible) I would not recommend those be exemptions because they do pose a danger to pipeline.  If normal farming put as pipeline at risk, the problem is not that the  the farming activity is not the source of the risk.  The source is the shallow pipeline and you really ought to be doing something about that.  I was going to give a spiel on what to do but I don't have time.  State and local government.  A lot of states have exemptions for road maintenance.  Especially if it does not change the grade.  Like pothole and emergency pavement repair.  You don't want to wait, you want to get in there right now.  Grading of unpaved roads.  I live in the country like I do, Iowa has thousands and thousands of gravel roads.  The maintainer goes out there hopefully once in awhile and tries to smooth them out a little bit.  Could be technical called an excavation because they are moving material but I don't see where it poses a risk and how you are going to mark all that and for what purpose.  Iowa and some of the states have exemptions like placing a sign at the same location and depth.  Somebody wipes out a stop sign, got to run out and there put in a new post and stop sign.  There's a public risk involved if you wait.  There should be no obstacle for time of completion of that.  You can say yes they could always call in on the emergency basis but if the state has an exemption like this, the question is is there a danger that warrants some sort of negative attitude towards that provision in state law because is there a demonstrable risk. 

State and local government.  A lot of government agencies own cemeteries.  Private ones are also in the same boat.  Somebody dies on Thursday, they're making funeral arrangements on Friday.  They want a funeral on Monday and they get, no, can't have it on Monday because we need twodays for one call.  But nobody has marked everything in a cemetery but the law says we have to wait two days before we can dig this hole.  That doesn't make any sense.  I guess I'd like to know how much pipeline is there in cemeteries.  

Public.  That's the website.  I think we all agreed that hand digging can be dangerous.  I am quite familiar with long handle excavation tools myself.  I chopped through roots, at least I think they were roots.  But gardening is a different story.  According to this website there's 43 million gardens in the United States and if they don't call in every spring, how are you going to handle that workload one call centers and how is the company going to check them all out.  For reasons I won't go into now I think it's unlikely they pose much risk.  

Roads.  Railroads representative up here.  They are a different ball game.  Iowa does not exempt them.  But they fall into exemption for private facilities on owner property.  In Iowa none of ours are one call members.  They also have permit systems.  Rigorous systems I might add.  So is the fact that railroads are not  I don't know is the situation with the railroads, is that any evidence of a problem.  Is anything being hit?  I don't know we need to find out.  

A few quick takeaways.  Targeted exemptions can be practical, realistic and necessary.  Mechanical excavation is not automatically risky.  Depends on depth and location.  Hand excavation can be risky.  Need data on exemption consequences.  Like how many pipelines are in cemeteries and landfills.  I skipped the landfill slide didn't I?  Anyhow we exempt operations in ongoing landfills.  The same thing could be said for surface mining operations.  Those are unreasonable exemptions.  How often is pipe in cemeteries damaged?  Pipe damaged by AG operations.  How often is pipelines damaged by gardening.  How often is pipe damaged by sign replacement or ion grade road maintenance?  And how often is pipeline by the railroad damaged?  We had discussion this morning about how it's going be hard to come up with some of this data.  I will kind of agree.  Like on the dirt.  It's a wonderful thing but I can tell as a farmer doing the work I can tell he is using farm equipment.  I can tell who is using agricultural activity.  And I don't know what he was doing or how deep it was.  So I can't just say here's the numbers on pipeline hits from agriculture.  I need to know more to know that the injunction is (inaudible) or if that farmer is doing something he shouldn't.  

Also something this morning about how exemptions should be allowed if there's no risk I. Say there's no such thing.  You can only move no risk.  You can never approve that hypothesis.  I think you need to look at whether there is evidence the exemption poses any sort of significant risk or hazard. 

I'll close by saying in many states one call laws are carefully crafted compromised between a lot of interests.  It's a pot you may not want to stir.  If you go in there saying these exemptions are bad, you really need to have some data to back that up.  To show that yes this particular exemption in the state law does pose a risk and it's actually not just some sort of philosophical exercise.  There actually is a solid basis and fact why your state should not have this exemption.  

And alas he's done.  

(Applause)

>> LINDA DAUGHERTY:  Thank you.  J.D. is the director for Colorado 811. 

>> JAY:  Thank you again for asking for an opinion and that being substantiated with data. 

Several years back state senator got on to the news and parents of a child said that they couldn't call 911 as a result of a cut facility in Colorado.  And the state senator got on and she later died.  It wasn't true that in fact because of the lag of 911 services getting there.  But, nevertheless, it happened.  Perception was created and the state senator from Colorado got on the news and said we're going do something about data damages.  He called me and asked what data do we have.  While we know the Public Utilities Commission has data and mostly on gas damages, on telecommunications there didn't exist a whole lot.  So that is how the data reporting mechanism was born in Colorado.  

I think when asked what exemptions are the biggest and what we are opposed to as a group, we say the biggest one was state DOTs.  And I haven't heard anybody  I had to step out but I haven't heard anything talk about that.  I heard a lot about agriculture and I think we have to talk about what's practical and what makes sense for every farmer in the United States to call every time when he is tilling his soil would in the be practical in my point of view.  But when they are doing nonagriculture work I think they should be calling because we know that many transmission pipelines are traversing our country. 

I'm going to give you a perspective on our law and a great data collection tool that we have that was mandated under law following the best practices in 1998 and 1999.  I think it was divine intervention that happened that allowed us to get data collection and mandated by all facility owners to us at the one call center.  Many of you have tried in your own states and have failed.  I'm going to give you a snapshot of a landscaper exemption and how it has impacted us.  

Our exemptions under one call law is the department of transportation railroad from joining in notifications for farmers and ranchers and landscapers. 

Qwest communications at the same time came to me and said you need to do something about all these damages occurring to our facilities.  You need to do something about landscapers damaging our facilities.  So in a group of 5,000 landscapers the landscapers association I got up there and pounded my fist you need to call, you need to call, you are not exempt under the law.  

And what happened was you got to watch what you ask for and what you do because we got an exemption under the law for landscapers.  And you can read it here.  And we have we are not in favor of this but, nevertheless, they had a very strong lobby in Colorado and we got an exemption for 12 inches by mechanic ago and four inches by hand digging. 

To give you an idea of what damage data looks like, you have the largest portion sewer work followed by landscaping work.  And that's what we're going to talk about here.  

For landscaping work, damages request has decreased every year since 2008.  You can see where we were.  And we took a snapshot of the data from 2007 to 2011 because that's when the law went in to place.  So we have really good data.  What does this data tell us?  The decrease in the metric has been more pronounced for landscaping work as compared to other types of construction work.  So you can see while others have risen, landscaping work actually went down with the exemption.  The reverse of what we thought we would find in our study.  From 2007 to 2011 on 47 percent of the damages, backhoe and trenchers were used.  Only 29 percent of damages a hand tool probe was used. 

Excavator habits have occurred to have changed.  A smaller occurrence when a backhoe was used.  In similar 2007 to 2008 landscaping work resulted in the second largest share of damages.  Landscaping work exception given for routine maintenance.  2010 landscaping work the percentages showed damage decrease in 2009 and 2010.  2011 landscaping work percentage of share of damages decreased.  Landscaping work resulted in the second largest share of damages drops to ten percent.  Landscaping damages metric drops from 17 to 7 damages  that should be per thousand.  Types of equipment.  Backhoe trencher damages dropped from 52 to 34 percent.  

So we struggled with this.  Why did we see damage decreasing even though the exemption went into place?  The data identifies a significant reduction in damages for landscaping work.  Our concerns are limited data set for assessing impact was that damage reported each year by each operator was the information supplied by each operator.  Numerous causes.  I think the biggest thing is that by working with the state and getting the exemption, I think it made the landscapers aware, Number 1, they didn't really know the law existed and that it pertained to them.  They thought they could go out and do the work and didn't have to call all of our messages and PSAs didn't apply to the landscaper.  Much as we see with the homeowner that it doesn't apply.  What we found nationally is they don't think it applies to homeowners.  One call center I think there was a challenge  are we prepared to handle all the homeowners calling for when they're doing projects in their yards?  Yes we are.  We want those calls think time the earth is moved in Colorado except when landscaping and doing routine maintenance work, we want that call to be made. 

At the same time, there was a  there's excel energy, our energy provider in the state of Colorado, the largest, had a tremendous effort being put forward in taking damage prevention to the excavator.  The mindset for us has been have breakfast meetings, have events and the excavator come to you.  What Excel energy has done is taken it to them.  So have a list of all their damages.  They take and do tailgate meetings and meet with the excavator in person oneonone and hold them accountable for all the damage that's occur.  We like to take credit for the drop in damages from 2003 it was roughly 13,000 to last year it was 3,000.  Tremendous success story in the number of damages being reduced.  But really it's a combination of awareness, the landscapers being aware that the law pertained to them, and we believe doing a better job when excavating around facilities, underground utilities.  Especially knowing they had the exemption.  We think that had a tremendous impact because it made them aware.  Also the effort put on behalf by Excel energy and really holding excavators accountable. 

When you look at natural gas damages, I believe 171 in the same periods from 2003, they're down to 4 to 1  for damages per thousand in Colorado.  And that's just a tremendous improvement.  

So, in closing, we think that the landscaping industry efforts were to the  advanced efforts to the change in the law.  And exemptions itself is not the likely cause of the improvement.  Many in the industry felt it did not pertain to them.  So lack of one call request.  The effort to alter the law brought to forefront noncompliance  that says the same thing.  I apologize.  Many landscaping firms targeted for awareness and education and damage reporting validated the need for change.  

Industry efforts to change law and encourage landscapers to alter attitudes and habits.  Awareness and education by stakeholders encourages and resulted in changes.  2011 the natural gas damages of two per thousand and 7 for landscaping.  

Is that?  I'm done.  Thank you. 

(Applause)

>> LINDA DAUGHERTY:  Thank you very much.  And thank you for watching the time.  Appreciate that.  Tim Vaughn is our next speaker.  The director of regulatory and external affairs with Kentucky 811.  

>> TIM VAUGHN:  Thank you for the opportunity to be here.  I am going to focus on the governmental affair sides exemptions and how the one call plays into that role.  Might be some interesting points that come up with that.  I would like to echo something J.D. said.  We're partners in this with everybody.  And we are equipped to handle all the calls that can be made to us.  We built with the capacity to handle that.  That's the role that we play.  So I think I can go out on a limb to say all the one call centers around the nation are equipped to handle all the calls that we can receive. 

There's two types of exemptions that I want to focus on from a legislative perspective.  One is a participation in the one call center.  Kentucky unfortunately is one of the few state that's does not require membership of operators into our one call system.  We don't exempt them from participating.  We just don't require them to.  So it's a fine line.  The other site is the work site specific.  That's what we typically focus on here.  I want to spend just a second before I go on about the private property exemption.  In Kentucky you got to be on private property, use none mechanical equipment and there's no encroachment on right of way.  If we were to track that from a data perspective, would we need to know which of those three caveats as violated.  That's a pretty complex system to track that thing.  

The other thing is some utility operators may or may not locate on private property.  So, if we remove that exemption and the homeowner makes the phone call and they do not get the locate, to them the system is broken.  So this is something that we need to look at from that response side of the one call exemption that's on that.  

Kentucky has  I stand here in an exemption meeting and in 2012 we added two new exemptions.  So we're looking at retracting but we're expanding.  The two that we added you can see on the screen  hand probing for leak migration.  Which I think everybody agrees that's probably something that is good to have during the leakage survey.  If you get an indication of gas, maybe  may not be an emergency at the time so we try to classify that.  So we do not want (inaudible).  And when somebody gets a locate request at an unlocatable facility and they have to excavate to find that facility we added that.  Good or bad they went through our general assembly and was agreed on by the folks involved with that process. 

So let's talk about at the state level.  Exemptions are viewed by sacred cows for the organization that holds them.  We've had bills that we filed that we'd go in to present it and the question you later document in front of the bill and the question is automatically, do I still retain my exemption?  And if the answer is yes, I'm good with the bill.  If the answer is no, we have to open this thing up and look at it closely.  So the sacred cow is something that we must look at.  

And if you tried to tackle that, 85 got some pretty powerful organizations with political clout you have now pulled into your arena and you better have some good boxing gloves to handle that because the fight is on and they bring the big guns from the national organization.  It's not about the content of the law, it's about is my client prepared.  And the tool that we need maybe the tool from the federal side of things that we're talking about.  Maybe that's a tool to help the states letting appropriately and properly the laws.  

Right now the biggest tool that we've got is an incident.  And I don't think anybody wants that to be the tool that we use to create legislation from.  So maybe we would look at some tools to assist.  

And the belief there is that the one call that  or the law belongs to the one call.  And when the fight breaks out, the enemy is the one call center.  And after the fight is over with, the one call center has to remain to be the liaison between those two supported the bill and those who didn't support the bill as well as the people who remain neutral. 

And if we innovate ourselves we become somewhat less effective performing our duties in the mission we're commissioned to do.  I just want to bring a legislative perspective to it.  In and out real quick.  Thank you very much.  

(Applause)

>> LINDA DAUGHERTY:  Thank you very much.  

Our next speaker will be Jennifer Reams.  She is the director of safety and damage prevention with Crestline Paving and Excavating company incorporated.  

>> JENNIFER REAMS:  Good afternoon.  

My name is Jennifer Reams with Crestline Paving and Excavating.  I am the director of safety.  I am also the Vice President national utility contractors association of Iowa.  I'd like to start by thanking PHMSA for putting this forum together and also for the opportunity to be a panelist.  

I'm here to discuss impact of exemptions on safety.  So my presentation will be a little different than what you have seen from a contractor perspective I like to go through the process so you can see the benefits of the obligation being fulfilled and the consequences of the exemption. 

I'd like to start by reading a quote from the CGA.  It says the responsibility for preventing excavation damage is shared by all stakeholders and includes elements such as planning, effective use of one call systems, accurate location and marking of underground facilities, adherence to safe digging practices, proper placement of facilities, and strong public education and awareness.  This is from a 1999 common ground study of one call systems and damage preventions best practices in August of 1999.  This concept of the importance of shared stakeholder responsibility and damage prevention has been a recurring theme in CGA from its inception.  We are here today to discuss the impact of exemption for some stakeholders.  Hopefully after today we'll walk away solidifying the recurring theme that effective damage prevention is only possible when all stakeholders equally fulfill their obligations in the process. 

Any misstep or lack of fulfillment in the lack of performance greatly increases the likelihood of damage.  The excavator has a vested interest and extensive knowledge of this process.  Damage occurs in the excavation phase of the process.  Meaning, if the stakeholder obligations are not fulfilled, this will have a direct impact on the excavator part of the project.  The more exemptions, the less responsibilities that are being filled, the more likelihood of damage.  Our employees see the risk factors directly affected by additions or eliminations of exemptions.  So the risk factor goes up as more exemptions come to be. 

A great deal of contractor resources are spent on incident investigation.  Why did this happen?  How can we make sure it does not happen again?  What this means is that excavator can provide vital information as to what happens when obligations are not being filled.  Unfortunately, to my knowledge this information is not shared amongst each other or the industry in any kind of formal environment.  Maybe at a beer or the beer at a bar.  What this further means is we have information that should be contribute for effective root cause analysis.  Many studies that implied root cause contain reporting and responder biases.  Meaning they're reporting a root cause for a majority of industry.  Often this is not intentional it's due to the lack of stakeholder participation or funding to educate stake holders the importance of submitting data and the implications when they do that. 

How do we view most exemptions.  The right to not fulfill responsibilities.  I don't want to get the sign to hurry up.  Exemptions.  Common types of exemptions.  Depth exemptions.  Some examples of states  Ohio, Texas, Indiana, New Jersey.  They vary from 6 to 18 inches.  Design exemptions.  We do have design exemptions in Ohio which I'll go into detail later.  Rural exemptions.  An example is Indiana but several states.  New York have already discussed that.  Municipality exemptions  Ohio, Texas, Pennsylvania, Indiana, just to name a few.  Facility type exemptions.  Pennsylvania also, Texas, Indiana, New Jersey.  Flow lines, gathering lines, storm and sewer.  What are they exempt from?  One call notification, locating, providing all approximate location information.  Basically obligations associated with effective damage prevention practices.  

Implications of exemptions.  How does it affect the process.  What I'd like to do is highlight the stakeholder obligations and talk about the benefits of fulfilling these obligations and the consequences what when you are not.  In the design phase a designer notifies the underground facility of intent of a project design involving excavation.  What is the benefit?  It gives notice of upcoming projects to the facility owners.  It gives you a heads up.  We're going excavating in this area.  What is the consequence of not fulfilling that obligation?  Or being exempt from fulfilling that obligation?  Facility owners are not given timely notice of projects within their right of way.  In Ohio they have 48 hours.  I don't think I want to be a facility owner and only have 48 hours to realize there's a project around my facility. 

The benefit is it starts the flow of communication, what's going on, how and who will be affected.  Two, if facility owners provide approximate locations of facilities within the project area.  Plans are designed to reduce the been  the benefit.  Plans designed to reduce and eliminate concepts.  The consequences, projects are designed without the knowledge of what is underground.  Essentially provides information not only to the project owner of the design process but the contractor.  Further, designers can only design a project to eliminate conflict and reduce conflict when they have the information to do so. 

Previous justly I mentioned the design exemptions in Ohio.  Facility owners in Ohio only have to provide information for names not services in the design phase that there are two problems.  Information is not provided for service lines so to design around a facility is not an option.  And the excavator is not provided all the information.  Its been my experience the majority of lines hit are service lines and providing less information seems counter productive in damage prevention efforts. 

Approximate locations of facilities are provide odd the plans.  This serves as a check system with the marks on the ground.  The consequences the excavator has only one source of information to rely on.  There's no check and balance system.  Most of the above has to do with the knowledge and information about the environment you will be performing work in.  The more knowledge and information is given, the less likelihood of damage.  For example, the check system that I just discussed.  One call is contacted, facilities are marked.  Two benefits to the final phase of the project.  A, information is provided on the plan so the excavator can review the plans against what is on the ground.  B, he or she know what's she is looking for.  Should be a service line at this facility or what is not marked.  I know to pick up the phone and make a phone call. 

This is to increase the safety in a very clear way.  Locating membership.  Facilities shall register their infrastructure location with the one call system.  They shall be a member.  The benefit is they're given the list of excavation performed within the area of the underground facility.  By being a member of the notification center the facility owner ensures they'll be notified when excavation is going to take place around or near their facilities.  Otherwise they have no notice and there are no marks and leading to no knowledge of the underground facility.  Two, upon notification facilities shall stake and mark their facilities.  The benefit.  This provides information of the excavator that there is an underground facility within the towering zone of the marks provided.  The consequence of an exemption.  They have no knowledge of excavation in their area.  The only way that an excavator knows is in the vicinity is if it's marked.  We must rely on the marks as the location is for propriety information.  An excavator cannot walk into a company and request to see their mapping system and are only able to obtain information directly on site is through the marks on the ground. 

Once again excavator cannot dig carefully in the vicinity of the facility if we do not know the facilities are there.  Three, all facilities are located regardless of vicinity whether it's rural, whether it's urban.  The benefit facilities are marked where excavation is going to take place.  

In Indiana their law says, quote, the term does not include gathering of gas in rural areas which lie outside the limits of incorporated or unincorporated cities or towns.  Many urban areas were one time rural.  Prior to becoming urban excavation took place to bring in structure.  At some point lines  sanitary, storm, electric and fire  that allowed population growth to the point of urban destination took place.  For example, Palm Beach, Las Vegas is a good example. 

Exemptions in the excavation phase.  Contact one call protection service with the intent to excavate regardless of depth of excavation.  What is the benefit?  Giving notice of excavation will be performed within the area of the underground facilities.  The consequence of being exempt from having to call with a depth exemption.  With the exception of gas, there is often no minimum underground facility bury standard.  Facilities can be buried at any depth.  Although the gas industry has a federal standard for depth of bury the law is silent when it comes to maintaining this depth overtime.  The standard went into effect in 1970 so older gas line do's not have the meet the federal requirements of the depth of your bury at installation.  The main point is through calling one call you are provided with information that the facility is in or is not in the area and you are giving the facility owner notice that the excavation is about to take place near their utility.  Since we do not know the depth of the line nor can we often rely on the standard for depth of bury to assure the safety of workers, public and environment, all excavations should be called if there's a facility in that area.  

I've experienced depth of bury two inches or being buried correctly in a concrete sidewalk or curb.  That is responsible?  That is not the topic today.  But if an excavator is excavating to remove the walks and the above scenario exists and does not have the obligation to call because they're not excavating more than six inches or in a municipality, they have 100 percent probability of damaging that facility.  And instead of calling in, seeing marks on the side walk, and upon being those marks knowing they must dig carefully, watch for the facility or have the emergency to the very least contact the owner to gather more information to ensure they're not going to damage that facility when they remove that concrete walk. 

In conclusion, PHMSA said it best.  Every exemption provides another opportunity for completely preventable serious pipeline incident to occur.  Further, exemptions do not meet the intent of the nine elements to better damage prevention as being exempt from obligations mean that's those standards and laws put into place to enhance damage prevention and safety are not being fulfilled.  The bottom line.  Does it make the process safer?  That's what we have to ask ourselves.  Does this exemption make the process safer?  Is there is any chance there's an underground facility in the area the answer is clearly no.  

Thank you.  

(Applause)

>> LINDA DAUGHERTY:  Thank you.  Before I call up Scott as our next speaker, is Greg Jeffries in the audience?  Remember our safety minute this morning.  Does anybody know Greg Jeffries?  If you do, give him a call and find out if he is okay. 

With that Scott Berry is the director of the utility infrastructure construction division environment and trade with the associated general contractors of America. 

>> SCOTT BERRY:  I hope it wasn't the hot dog.  (Laughter). 

Boy, I really like the times when I get to come up here and say that agree with almost everything that's been said already in front of all you people.  I also want to thank PHMSA for hosting this event and Stan and Annemarie for asking me to come up and tremendous.  My name is Scott Berry I am the director of the associated contractors of America.  I am going to try to go quick because I know we're running low on time. 

For those unfamiliar with the associated general contractors are we are the leading trade association for the construction industry.  We have over 30,000 members that we service through a series of 95 chapters in all 50 states including D.C. and Puerto Rico. 

Our firm's engaged in the construction of public and private buildings as well as multifamily housing, highway and transportation projects, military facilities, heavy civil works, utilities and, of course, pipelines.  The majority of members are small, closely held businesses.  But safety is a top priority for AGC members.  AGC and our chapters emphasize safety and regularly conduct safety to ensure our workforce comes home safely at the end of the day.  Thanks to Peter for the shout on the first panel that safety is our number one concern at AGC.  

Our members strongly believe in the construction industry there are no absolutes just as excavators in North Dakota dig differently than Florida our laws differ.  This is why many of us agree we don't have a national one call law.  But the same principals also hold true when talking about exemptions.  One size does not fit all.  AGC supports the premise that the best place for exemption decisions to be made is in the states themselves.  Something that my friend in Kentucky just alluded to.  The federal government's first priority should not only be to encourage states to adopt policies and procedures to promote affective damage prevention but to let them do it.  You have to let them operate and enforce laws.  AGC takes a position with a presumption against exemptions.  In general exemptions are problematic and can result in increased damages.  However, we agree that exemptions should only exist where they're backed up with sound data.  An example would be an exemption for DOT replacing a broken stop sign at the intersection.  There isn't a demonstrable safety concern for waiting 2 or 3 days for replacement.  We've heard other examples of lower relative risk excavations like vertical mining, et cetera.  Mentioned a few in Virginia that together represent about .3 percent of damages.  Each exemptions must be carefully weighed with the prevailing utility types in each state. 

We do not feel that an immediate blanket ban on all exemptions would be in the best interest of the contractors and the safety of or workers.  We all acknowledge the risk in excavation projects.  Some excavations carry a higher relative risk of a damage to a facility.  An outright ban on all exemptions would lead to large increases in the volume of calls.  Some call centers in our utilities may not be able to process this volume as quickly or efficiency.  Potentially crowding out and delaying locate requests with a higher relatively risk of deadly damage with the system flooded with homeowner and farming requests (inaudible).  My colleague Don from Iowa underscored this point.  My point is evaluation of relative risk is critical in weighing safety impact of keeping certain exemptions.  We shouldn't kid ourselves to believe there are no safety exemptions.  Nor should we kid our about the groups (inaudible).  J.D. from Colorado hit this point.  Just because exemption goes away doesn't mean a ticket would have been called in.  There is plenty of examples in place.  Many of my colleagues have mentioned then and Jennifer went into more depth just a minute ago. 

We agree that the majority of exemptions that exist in current law are likely too problematic to maintain and are unjustifiable and exist as leftovers from the impenetrable soup ha is the policy making process.  And I live in Washington, D.C. so dangerous me you can't see through any of that. 

Keep in mind when we talk about exemptions we're talking about exemptions from notifications as well as the equally important exemption from one call marketing.  

Many of these exemptions were put in place decades ago and times have changed considerably since then.  Many places that had rural exemptions now are not so rural.  The number, type and depth of buried facilities are different now than they were 20 or 30 plus years ago when many state laws were written. 

Enforcement rule making seems to be encouraging many states to up date their laws and ACG would like to encourage all the states to review their  (inaudible) we'd like to thank all the stake holders in the room and who are all in the room together.  This is quite the brain trust we've gathered and we look forward to collaborating with all of you to make sure our workers come home safely at the end of the day and ultimately we reach the goal of zero damages. 

Thank you.  

(Applause)

>> LINDA DAUGHERTY:  I am very impressed.  (Laughter) There's no way I could talk that fast.  (Laughter).  And you got a lot of content in there too and I could understand it.  (Laughter). 

What do you think?  We have a lot of good information here.  It's time for Q & A?  Unless Greg has appeared?  No.  So we have a few minutes for Q & A.  We had a lot of good information from that panel.  Now remember we have, what, two more panels coming up.  But it's important to think about what they're saying.  Remember we talked earlier about having an open perspective and really thinking through these issues.  If this was a simple, easy thing we wouldn't be needing to have this meeting.  People have different perspectives of different viewpoints and they're equally valid.  We need to understand them and figure out how to move forward.  Sam, do we have a question.

>>  We do.  Two from our internet viewers.  The first from Leo.  He asked J.D., is the data referenced in your presentation limited to damages for natural gas or hazardous liquid pipelines?  Is the pipeline data or is that all utilities. 

>> J.D. MANISCALCO:  All utilities.

>>  The second is from Bob Fenton in Wyoming.  This is a question directed to PHMSA and state one call representatives.  Is there any chance of mandating that all states with agricultural exemptions define what the exemption work includes and also what the maximum depth is that keeps that work exempt?  Could this be consistent for all one call centers vague and ambiguous language compromises enforcement of the law.  So I think he's asking about the clarity of exemptions regarding agriculture.

>> LINDA DAUGHERTY:  Common definitions.

>>  SAM:  Definitions, language, that kind of thing.  I am assuming.

>> J.D. MANISCALCO:  I can only speak to Colorado but it's for agriculture purposes that are usually backed up in state law that define what that is.  So many of the attributes of the gentleman from Iowa that talked about, you know, the excavations, many of those for agricultural purposes would be exempt.  But none agricultural, you know, and it's defined under our law.  So we have something to point to to figure out what that is.

>>  I think it's slippery slope to start on from a one call perspective.  We need two things.  One is to look at the different geographic regions have different ages of structure.  Some may have been put in under different sets of regulations.  And construction standards is another thing.  Throw the regulations away but look at construction standards in place at the time that each parcel of geographic area was developed.  And the second thing is, being a one call exemption on that, I think that maybe might be better off pushed back to the operators defining their locate process based on the type of agricultural activity that's going on and the type of facilities they have in the ground instead of a blanket statement that says all of these are exempt.

>> LINDA DAUGHERTY:  Guess who we found.  So without further adieu, Greg Jeffries, the secretary of the NLUCA executive board.  Have at it.  

>> GREG JEFFRIES:  I don't know what Ron prepared.  And I apologize because he asked me to come at the last minute.  

As I understand it  and I apologize for coming in last minute.  As I understand it, essentially we are not in favor of any exemptions.  I apologize for coming in cold, but it was actually in our board meeting just a moment ago and there was consensus among our members that we strenuously object to exemptions from the one call laws.  

That's it.  That's all I have.  

(Applause)

>> LINDA DAUGHERTY:  That was very succinct.  Okay.  Back to questions.  I see we have someone.  Yes?  Please identify yourself.

>>  Brenda Wiggle.  Executive director for NUCA of Pennsylvania, representing excavators and utility contractors throughout the state.  

I have a question.  How is a contractor expected to open a trench where there's concrete or blacktop on the top within the tolerance zone?

>>LINDA DAUGHERTY:  There you go.

>> JENNIFER REAMS:  What I would suggest if you see there are marks over concrete or roadway, that's when you know you, you have to contact and actually have communication with the facility owner.  And to find out the depth.  When I remove this concrete walk is it going to affect the facility?  At that point, if it is, then it will be up to the facility owner obviously to relocate the facility because they don't want their facility damaged when you are removing walks.

>>  What tool does he use to do that?  You are taking away hand digging, from what I am seeing, can't use saw cutting.  How do we get through this material?  Plastics from the lawyer in Pennsylvania.

>> RANDY KNEPPER:  I can speak for my state of New Hampshire.  It doesn't fall under exemptions but falls through allowing digging methods.  

If you are cutting through concrete or asphalt you are allowed to use recognized equipment.  I think utilities would not be able to do their own job every day if they couldn't do that.  So hand digging through  if you have ever done hand digging without the asphalt and the concrete in our state there's enough gravel and large rocks it's very difficult to do that.  But there's no way you are going to do it without it.  It's not an exemption but an allowed excavation method. 

>> JENNIFER REAMS:  I am confused on the question.  There's not an exemption from digging or removing concrete.  So I am confused the question.

>>  Audience member:  Well talking about the number of hits done with using hand digging tools.  I mean, you can't hand dig concrete.  You can't dig asphalt.  And it's hard enough digging around large rocks with a shovel.  Now we're going take that away.  It seems like we're not going to allow the use of that tool.  It seems like it's an exemption that I know it's a necessary tool in our industry, unfortunately.  I do want to encourage standard depths.  That they be established and maintained.  

The reason I bring this up is because we have a contractor in the state of Pennsylvania I do think he was fined  I think Paul from PDC can confirm this  he was excavating and ran across a lot of various gas lines that were not at the depths that you would expect them to be at and ended up, you know, he located all of those.  And figured, you know, that should be it.  We should be done and ready to go.  Which is a mistake, I know.  But this happens.  Unfortunately, he hit a gas line with a saw cutting when he was saw cutting six inches in the concrete.  And I guess no one's really expecting six inches in the concrete to find a gas pipeline.  Blew up a restaurant.  Fortunately, for us, all of us in Pennsylvania, the restaurant was under restoration so no one was there.  But still a lot of damage had been done. 

And I'm just trying to find out from a contractor's perspective so I can carry this back to Pennsylvania, I just want you to think about what  also keep in mind the real world scenarios that are really out there.  It's not all black and white.  I come from the legislature.  I know you can't write it all in black and white.  Trust me.  It can't be done.  I wrote enough law.  But, at the same time, we got to try to write it so it's realistic and workable and livable and try to reduce as much as possible.  

>> JENNIFER REAMS:  I'd like to say I don't think they're trying eliminate the use of hand tools.  I hope my presentation didn't come across.  The depth exemption that I am saying that should be eliminated is that you have to actually call if you are going, you know, less than six inches because of that fact.  I have experienced where I've removed concrete walks and the line has been buried directly in there.  If I would have take than exemption in Ohio I would have never known.  Now I know when there's a mark on the sidewalk I need to call and say there's a mark I am going to remove this walk am I going to damage your line.  If I am just removing a walk and take that exemption, there's never going to be a mark, I'm going damage the law and jeopardize the safety of my workers, environment and the general public. 

That's why I am saying all depth exceptions should be eliminated because of that fact.  Lines are buried two inches in the walks.

>> LINDA DAUGHERTY:  Thank you. 

Anybody else?  You want to come to the Mike please.  Also if anybody has questions on index cards.  Where is Sam?  Please pass those to Sam.

>>  Audience member:  I am Gary.  And it seems to me that New Mexico's got a provision in its law that works very well.  It's the only exemption in there from anyone calling.  It basically takes a little different perspective.  And our law says if you own underground infrastructure, then you are required to spot whit the excavator calls and do stuff and be a member and stuff.  But the exemption says if you own all the underground facilities on the property, you have the mineral rights to the property, and you own and operate all of those facilities, then you don't have to call.  And the concept is that because you own everything, you are the farmer, the rancher, the homeowner, whatever it might be, you can dig on your own property.  If you damage something that you own, really nobody cares.  It's when the risk goes on for either the excavator or the facility owner that the exemption becomes an issue.  So the exemption only applies when that situation exists.  That's the exemption we have in our law but it's very seldom used because most of the time there's more than one facility on there. 

And the argument goes that if you are the farmer or the rancher and you allow a pipeline to come across your property and you get paid for the right of way or the easement or whatever's going to get put in place, then you have an obligation to call to make sure that things get marked before you dig.  Otherwise you don't have that obligation.  

So I think that works good and that might be a different perspective.

>> LINDA DAUGHERTY:  Thank you for your perspective.  One quick  you got to be very quick.  Because you are standing between everybody here and their break.  (Laughter).

>>  Audience member:  This question for I think Randy and Don.  You both point out that there's sort of a disincentive for the states by taking money from them to keep the safety programs going.  And I guess my observation is, I think that the point of the grant provisions in the law and the proposed regulation is to incentivize states not to get there. 

So my question to you is:  Is that effective and is there a better way if that's note way to do it?  (Standby). 

>> DON STURSMA:  (Audio interruption). 

To change the law if that's what they're asking.  All it's doing is impacting the programs from doing some of the damage prevention programs that we want to do.  And so, you know, it seems to me counter intuitive of what's happened.  But that's the law.  So that's what PHMSA has to wrestle over at this point and time.  And, you know, it's beyond us to debate whether it's right or wrong.  That's the current condition. 

We had that debate earlier.  The states pretty much got ignored.

>> LINDA DAUGHERTY:  Not by us.  That is the law. 

We're up for a break.  Please come back at 2:35.  We got a great panel three.  Some great speakers coming up.  And thank you to the panel here.  Thank you.  

(Applause)

(At break till 2:35 p.m.) 



 





>> LINDA DAUGHERTY:  Okay, would everybody migrate to your seats and whoever is in the hall round people up so we can get started. 

By the way, I want to say thank you to everybody participating on the webcast.  I know watching a computer screen all day can be a long and tedious but I want to thank you because your participation is important and you add value to this forum on a very important issue for all of us. 

Panel three.  We're going to look at the impact of exemptions in another stakeholder group.  We will be hearing from local government officials headed by Mayor Ed Pawlowski of Allentown Pennsylvania.  We preach appreciate his becoming active  maybe you have alwaysive and I wouldn't aware of that.  We'll also hear from Julie Ufner with the National Association of Counties.  Noel Thompson of American Public Works Association.  Andrew Walmsley and Robert Fronczak.  So in order to keep us going time wise, I will keep introductions very short.  So with no further adieu, please let me introduce Ed Pawlowski, the Mayor of the city of Allentown, Pennsylvania.  Thank you.  

(Applause)



>> MAYOR ED PAWLOWSKI:  Thank you.  And thank you for all being awake.  You guys are amazing.  It is 2:30 p.m. after lunch.  You are in Palm Beach.  It's a beautiful day and you are all still here.  I am quite amazed.  I'll be honest with you.  Since it is 2:30 p.m. I don't expect any of you to be awake for this panel.  I'm going tell you a little story.  You've been hearing technical stuff all day. 

It is a story about a preacher who dies and goes to heaven.  And he is standing in front of St. Peter.  And he's got this long line of people trying to get into heaven.  And he's observing the line.  Before him in line is this guy who is kind of disheveled.  You know, he's got jeans, he's got a leather coat on.  His hair is, you know, kind of disheveled.  And he gets up to St. Peter and St. Peter says tell me your name and why should I let you into the kingdom of heaven.  He says okay I am Joe.  I have been a tax I can driver in New York city for 25 years.  St. Peters says here is your golden staff.  Here is your silk robe. Enter in the kingdom of heaven.  He says pretty easy.  Gets up there St. Peters says tell me your name and why I should let you into the kingdom of heaven.  I'm John Smith and the pastor of St. Timothy church for 30 years.  St. Peter looks at the book and says here is your cotton robe and your wooden staff and enter into the kingdom of heaven.  So he starts walking.  Then he is like what's going on here.  Here is this taxi cab driver all disheveled.  He's got a silk robe and golden staff I've got a cotton robe.  I've been a preacher for 30 years.  I don't get it.  He says what is going on?  St. Peter says up here in heaven we believe in performance.  For the last 30 years while were you a preacher people slept.  For the last 20 years while he drove a taxi cab in New York city, people prayed.  (Laughter). 

So my goal here this afternoon is to make sure  I tell that story just to say my goal is not to put you to sleep. 

I want to talk briefly about the practical aspects of having a one call system.  And I think the best way to do that is to start by showing what happens when you don't have a one call system.  In May of 1994 an excavation crew bent a natural gas pipeline leading to a senior complex in the city while removing a buried heating oil tank.  The company left the pipe uncovered and unsupported until damaging it again in early June of that year.  That night a gap in the gas line caused gas to flow into the complex, triggering two explosions and a fire.  Devastateing that building.  The explosion resulted in one person being killed and 60 others injured.  

That's what happens when you don't have a one call system.  That's what happens when you have contractors that don't follow the one call system.  In fact, Allentown has seen its share of pipeline tragedies.  That's why I got involved in the whole pipeline issue.  

In fact, it was two years ago, just recently, in February 11, 2011, we had a gas pipeline explosion in Allentown that killed five people, injured over 60, leveled eight homes and just fragmented the community.  The fire raged in this particular explosion for almost eight hours.  And was caused by a crack in a natural gas pipeline that was in the street.  In fact the ignition source, the two elderly people that died in the house that was the ignition source did not even have a natural gas to the house.  It seemed into the basement. I came to realize we are not alone. 

September of 2010 of course there was San Bruno, California.  Eight people died.  60 injured.  55 homes absolutely destroyed.  I was just out there recently because  I'll talk about it in a second  we're forming a national coalition of Mayors for more pipeline safety regulations.  And the Mayor was telling me that the flames shot up 2,000 feet into the air.  The fire was so hot because of that particular explosion that they could not even get fire trucks to the site.  They had fire trucks literally melting as they were getting closer to the flames. 

December 10th, when Michigan, two dead, one injured.  January  I can't even see it.  I'm sorry Brentwood, New York, one dead, 17 wounded.  Milford, Connecticut, one dead, two injured.  This is Springfield, Massachusetts.  Would be nice if I could actually see.  And, of course, West Virginia, 20 transmission lines destroyed five homes and severely damaged others.  Of course just recently, Kansas city leveled one city block, 1 dead and 15 injured. 

All these explosions, not all were caused because of contractor err.  Some were caused by the pipe that was in the ground.  And some were caused by irregularitys in the pipe.  But the human toll of all these tragedies between 2010 and 2012, 21 folks have died.  154 have been injured.  And hundreds of millions of property loss. 

So as Mayor I saw a real need to define reasonable and predictable regulations to safeguard our community.  I realized we needed better, tighter, regulations to protect our citizens and our neighborhoods.  And I believe that cities, we must be proactive.  We have to be proactive ensuring higher safety standards even though that infrastructure under the ground is not ours.  For many Mayors in many municipalities we ignore the infrastructure.  It is not our water pipes.  It is not our sewer pipes.  It's not something we usually pay attention to.  But I believe if we don't start looking at this in a realistic way, if we don't start looking at tighter regulations regarding these pipelines and how these pipelines are put in, as well as the one call system, you know, we will  it's no not if, but we will see more explosions like this happen in our cities across this country in the very near future. 

So we actually applied for a grant from PHMSA under the technical assistance grant and we received it.  We're actually creating a national council, Mayors council on pipeline safety.  With the help of the U.S. conference of Mayors we have created a national task force of pipeline safety.  We're engaging Mayors from across the country to collaborate to define and develop really safety protocols specific to our cities.  

The new task force will create a framework of procedures and protocols for cities to improve safety through engineering and damage prevention and land use and public education and community awareness, emergency response preparedness, and a system of really open communication between cities throughout the country to really discuss areas related to pipelines and pipeline safety.  Also because of the grant, the task force will have funds to craft policy and position papers and improve pipeline safety in our communities.  

So that is my pitch for the national task force.  If you would like to be involved, let me know.  You don't have to be a Mayor to be involve.  But let me go back to one call. 

As a result of that explosion that happened in that senior building back in 1994, Pennsylvania passed act 287 which requires excavators as well as private land owners to call Pennsylvania one call system three business days before any kind of digging occurs with power equipment.  According to act 287, no construction excavation activities of any kind including blasting or drilling or boring vibrations are to be done on any pipeline easement area before the pipeline operator has established the location of the effected facilities and the limits of those particular easements.  If during the course of the excavation a facility has been exposed or damaged, it is the excavator's responsibility to promptly notify the facility owner so it may be inspected, repaired and if necessary back filled. 

The excavator should support the exposed facilities until such time as the facility owner inspects them F. It was done in 1994 we would have never had that explosion in that senior building and never had the loss of life and injury of 60 senior citizens.  Failure to notify a facility owner can result in excavator being held responsible for any and all damages attributable to the damaged facility and if found the excavator did not contact one call, conviction can result in a fine up to $50,000 or imprisonment up to 90 days or both.  Not to speak of the civil liabilities in that particular manner.  And because of the damage caused as a result of noncompliance. 

To the one call system is a mandatory organization in Pennsylvania.  It is presently the only one call system in operation in Pennsylvania.  Now as with any system as we have learned throughout the day, there are some underground facility owners who have elected not to belong in violation of the act.  Excavators are not required in Pennsylvania to make any effort to contact these nonparticipating facility owners directly before attempting an excavation.  

Also in Pennsylvania, as has been stated several times today, the department of transportation is not required to use the one call system.  By the way, I think that is incredibly ludicrous.  That the department of transportation, they should be setting the example but they're not required.  And let me just tell you, as a result, you know, Penn dot which is the Pennsylvania department of transportation, by not contacting one call recently a contractor broke lines and highway lighting and no one knew about this break in the highway lighting because Penn DOT did not register with one call.  So for days this whole track of expressway that runs through our area was unlit.  And no one knew about it. 

Also farmers are exempt from notifying the one call system.  And the law in Pennsylvania actually sun sets in 2016.  Which, you know, we are always fighting and are going to continue to fight with other mayors from across the state to make sure that it's extended.  Because Pennsylvania, as you know, is one of the largest deposits of Marcela shell in the world.  In fact we have this massive amount of Marcela shell gas sitting under the state of Pennsylvania.  In the next ten years, we are looking at over 40,000 miles of interstate pipeline.  Another 40,000 miles of intrastate pipeline going through Pennsylvania in a state that is only 47,000 square miles. 

So there is lots of pipeline going through the state.  I know one of our regulators are here from our utility commission.  He is going to be quite busy over the course of the next several years as all these  this Marcela shell is being taken out and the pipelines are going through our communities.  So we're going to be pushing heavily that this law does not sunset in Pennsylvania. 

And I've heard a lot of talk today about, you know, the one call, the one call exemptions and I've heard speaker after speaker talk about how this is not perfect and how there's problems.  You know what?  Nothing's perfect.  There's a great quote from Volteer that I often share sometimes.  Says you can't let the perfect stand in the way of the absolutely necessary.  You know, the one call is not perfect, but it is absolutely necessary.  It's good for Pennsylvania.  It's good for every state that it's in.  It's good for our communities.  It's good for our neighborhoods.  It's good for our cities and we need to make sure those exemptions are removed. 

So thank you for listening.  Consider joining our task force if you are interested in that and appreciate you all staying here at 2:30 p.m. in the afternoon on a beautiful sunny day in Palm Beach and listening to all of us.  Thank you so much.  

(Applause)



>> LINDA DAUGHERTY:  Okay.  Should I ask the Mayor to not keep reminding everybody how beautiful it is outside?  (Laughter) That was excellent.  And I do want to thank you on behalf of PHMSA and a whole lot of other people for being involved in pipeline issues and starting up the council of Mayors.  We expect great things and we know you will deliver. 

So also our next speaker is Julie Ufner.  She is the associate legislative director with the National Association of Counties also known as NACO. 

>> JUILIE UFNER:  Good afternoon.  So I'll be coming from a slightly different level.  A higher 30,000foot level.  Again my name is Julie from the National Association of Counties.  I do want to thank you for the invitation to speak today.  We often get the question is who are counties.  Who is NACO?  NACO represents all 3,069 counties, parishes and  boroughs.  Alaska and Louisiana have county type governments called boroughs and parishes respectively.  Connecticut and Rhode Island do not have counties as defined by the census bureau.  So counties range in size from 26 square miles to close to 88,000 square miles.  Likewise their populations differ widely from 82 people in Lubbock county Texas to close 2 million in Los Angeles.  80 counties have populations more than 500,000.  But most of the counties in this nation, approximately 70 percent or a little bit over, 2100 are considered rural.  That means they have populations less than 50,000.  It usually mean that's the commissioners, elected officials are parttime and the staff wears many different hats.  

When federal government was formed, the framers of the constitution didn't provide for local governments.  Rather they left the matter up to the states.  So when the states constitutions conceptualized counties, they did it as an arm of the state.  So the county authorities can differ widely not only from state to state, but even within the same county.  County responsibilities can really differ.  You have the courts, public safety, emergency operations, operation of jails.  For most counties, they are in charge of construction and maintenance of local roads.  However, North Carolina is an exception to that rule.  They don't have any responsibilities.  And wide varieties also exist in the social service responsibilities and the types of utilities.  I.E., water, sewer, storm water, even land use zoning, landfills by county governments.  It all depends on the authority granted by the state. 

So what does this have to do with pipeline exemptions really?  NACO's policy is governed by our members.  They proposed our policy, vet it and pass it.  NACO doesn't have an official position on exemptions.  Before we came here we did ask our members to weigh in and we got a few responses.  They ranged from, please keep our exemptions to I'm all about public safety.  One of the thing that's really wasn't focused on this morning is that local governments can also be regulated and regulator.  But they also are responsible for public safety at the local level.  They are the first responder on the scene when an incident happens.  

So the bottom line is there's good news and there's bad news.  And local governments don't want to be part of the bad news.  So we really applaud PHMSA for looking at exemptions and how they impact local governments.  And talking with our counties, some exemptions towards local governments may make sense.  For example, certain types of service road projects.  But a one size fits all program is never effective.  And it doesn't take into account the regional differences and flexibilitys.  These are best determined by the state.  Additionally, some of our counties mentioned some membership exemptions that may make sense from a practical standpoint.  For example, counties that own waterlines.  Some of these water lines could have been put in decades ago and aren't adequately mapped.  Even if a local government does have maps, they could be very far off from the mark where they are because of maybe being hand dug, the depth of the lines or the type of the lines.  They just don't have the technology to adequately map them.  

So we're concerned that if you move forward with mandating these without understanding the reasons why certain things aren't done, that you may put additional costs on the smaller rural counties.  Remember the 70 percent that we talked about before?  So we really urge you to do carrot versus the stick and make up ideas outside the box to how to address some of these problems.  And some of the best ways to do that is the best practices technical assistance education. 

And we just urge you again to maintain a common approach sense to exemptions while maintaining safety.  Thank you.  

(Applause)



>> LINDA DAUGHERTY:  Thank you very much.  Our next speaker will be noel Thompson of the American Public Works association board of directors.  

>> NOEL THOMPSON:  Thank you.  That's news to me.  It's just a little outdated.  (Laughter). 

While I am a member of the American Public Works association, and I'm actually here on their dime, I don't have a policy an APWA policy to share with you because there isn't one.  So I want to share with you more of my perspective that is informed similarly to a number of you who have certain traits that I have being a baby boomer of a certain age.  

I have seen this country grow from a population of under 150 million to over 320 million been my lifetime.  That's a very rapid growth when you look at the world's history.  And along with that growth came development.  We were largely a rural country in the 1950s.  But with the advent of FHA loans and GI bill loans suburbia emerged.  And with that new developed.  And in the 50s the interstate highways came along and many people felt they were great sucking devices that took people out of the cities and put them into the suburbs also and depleted the urban cores to a great extent to where they were not the most attractive places to be.  But still today we see our urban cores being repopulated by residential poverty and industrial and commercial developments.  And it means to me that it means to me that we are having more concepts of competing facilities to use a limited space.  

I was a public works executive in metropolitan areas for a couple of decades.  And my view was that was no one should be exempt from being a one call member or one call user.  That any cut into the ground in the public sector was going to disrupt something.  I was in charge of the right of ways so you were cutting my right of way.  And I wanted that maintained.  And I wanted to make sure that you were going to do that

Now I was a Public Works executive and metropolitan areas for a couple of decades and my view was that no one should be exempt from being a OneCall member or a OneCall user that any cut into the ground in the public sector was going to disrupt something.  I was in charge of the rightofways.  So you were cutting my rightofway.  And I wanted that maintained and I wanted to make sure you were going to do that, but I had mechanisms that helped me control that.  I had a permitting system that started out with a pen and paper and with multiple copies that we filed and engaged stacks.  We never could get in to analyze any hard copy.  It wasn't until the event of computers and GIS systems where we could do spacial analysis and tabular analysis of who was using the rightofway and just tracking all the activities that were occurring.  Damages were also a concern, but the emphasis was just keeping a sense of norm.  The sense of danger was not particular eminent  and that may have been my perspective as a Public Works Person because in my person, I did not have gas or electric, but we did have water, sewer and steam and those particular facilities were usually the ones that were damaged lease frequently and also had the least impact on the delivery of those public services.  So we didn't have that great of a concern; however, across the land, Public Works folks did have a broader perspective and a marking code that is still used today and they developed the utility of coordinating developing committees and they developed the OneCall systems international.  So while we've got this history of engagement, we currently are at a point where it might be implicit that we will favor no exemptions.  We simply don't have a policy at this point.  So, my other aspect that informs me was that I was a OneCall president for five terms and I was also a OneCall executive briefly and that's where I really got educated.  So the information that we shared with you today by other OneCall executives, those are perspectives that I share and I think that you will see the Public Works stakeholders being more dynamic in the coming years in getting a workable and safe solution directed towards exemptions.  Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

>> You know, I'm hearing a little bit of a theme from this panel.  I'm trying to think back to the other panels.  We heard from the Mayor about city issues.  You know?  We heard from Julie about county issues which could be city or urban.  We've heard from noel about the cities challenges and congestion and now we're going to hear from Andrew Walmsley.  I bet he can talk to us about congested areas.  Now watch how I handle the gaffe from the previous one.  Andrew Walmsley, are you with the American Farm Bureau Federation?

>> ANDREW:  At least when I left D.C, I was.  I am appreciative for yawl being here in sunny Florida.  I am a sixth generation Native Floridian.  I will try to keep up with Scott.  So you can get out of this room and spend some money in this great state.  You probably  there's a long history of southern Baptist preachers in my very narrow family tree.  So I tend to talk quite quickly.  I was raised Catholic.  So I'm a little screwed up.  So hopefully you can keep up with me.

[Laughter]

I guess this afternoon some are even getting giddy or I'm not sure there are a few politicians that are in that skinny family tree, but I'm going to start with a story this afternoon, Mayor.  This is a story of a Cowboy that was crossing a dirt road.  He looks off the distance and sees a little red sports car.  It slows down.  Gentleman gets out and he looks slick, Gucci shoes, all the get up.  Looks around.  Says to the cowboy, if I tell you how many cows and calfs, you have, will you let me have one of your calfs?  The young man files  takes pictures of his farm and downloads a bunch of data and gets a shot back to his iPhone and pulls up a little map and he says you have 1,222 calfs in your operation.  The Cowboy says wow.  You're right.  I guess you can have a little calf.  He starts stuffing the calf.  The Cowboy says if you tell me what you do for a living, will you give me my calf back.  The Cowboy says you're a congressman from the U.S. government.  He said you came out here when nobody asked you, answered a question I already knew and you tried to show me how much more you knew about my farm than I did.  Now give me back my dog.

[Laughter]

Now one of the reasons American Farm Bureau is here and I tell that story is we're trying to prospect our dogs and maybe sacred cows that were mentioned earlier too.  American Farm Bureau is representing every county across this country.  They federate together to create the state farm bureaus and they come together.  So we represent the hard work farmers and ranchers that produce the feed, food, fiber, fuel and flowers that you need in your everyday life.  As far as this issue is concerned, this is something that our membership  I don't think has been aware of.  In my service years with the organization and been talking to folks, it has the potential to be a big issue.  I think there is real common sense.  Some of those have been discussed today.  I think we would be willing to work with any interested party to address those.  I think our concerns are when you go about regulating just to regulate or you go along regulating without appropriate data, science or analysis done to come up with such a regulation and especially one without necessarily our input.  And so, once again, I appreciate being here and I hope we make some new friends out of this conference.  And I think Don did a good presentation earlier.  He saved me from putting a PowerPoint together because he did a good job of illustrating what equipment there is out there.  One thing I do want to say is that I think there is probably a lot less tillage going on than there is traditionally because of 61 servation practices due to saving fuel costs for us, it's better for the soul, it's better for the environment.  So I don't know how much soil is being turned.  Obviously a lot less than traditionally has.  Something maybe along the lines of Iowa where there is certain depth and certain practices that are exempt.  When you look at over 922 million acres of farmland across the country, what's the point of marking all that.  And he's right.  We weather dependent.  This is someone's livelihood here, but is there instances when this should be a need to call?  And I would say yes.  We would be open to looking at that.  I think we should be very careful on doing a blanket approach.  When you live in diversity of agriculture across this country, it's amazing.  You look in the diversity of the agriculture in this state where nearly 300 different commodities are grown from traditional low crops in the pan handle to citrus groves in the state, to specialty crops and foliage and nursery crops further south.  You have to be careful in understanding the differences between traditional practices and a farmer resetting a citrus tree that in a grove that's been wiped out by canker or green or any other diseases that are out there.  So I think our main message is that if practicality can win out and there's sound data and us working together, I think we're here at the table to be as helpful as we can and look forward to working with everyone in this room.  So thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

>> I want to thank you, Andrew, for being at the table and engaging with us on this conversation.  When I say us, I mean all of us.  So our next speaker is  I'm getting nervous now since I screwed that one.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've got you as Robert Fronczak who is the assistant vice president environmental and association of American railroads.

>> ROBERT:  Very good.  I am the railroad stake holder representative for the County grand alliance.  So I think we are very engaged in this issue and we are very concerned about underground facility damage prevention.  The  a little bit about AAR for those of you not familiar with the railroad industry, we represent 67% of the industry's mileage.  89% of the employees and 93% of the freight revenue.  We actually transport 43% of the year to city domestic freight, which is more than any other mode of transportation.  So we haul a lot of freight.  Matter of fact, we'll pick up some of that liquid stuff that the pipelines can't handle right now and we're doing that.

  The railroads that have over 443 million all last year and they include DNSF and Canadian Pacific and CSS Transportation, southern and Union Pacific.  Two of our members  I think this is CSX over to the left here.

>> (speaking)

>> ROBERT:  Just to the east of us is a railroad.  We're in the middle of two of our members.  Amtrack who does all the inner city passenger track.  Some other regional shortlines and passenger and commune railroads are also members.  This is just a list of all of our members.  And one thing I would like it say about railroads is that we are a very safe industry.  We do safety briefings before every reading that we have.  Kind of like what we started this morning and we feel it's very appropriate.  One of the things that you'll hear if you call somebody on the railroad and leave a voicemail is have a safe day in their outgoing voicemail greetings.  We're the safest mode of transportation when you look at lost employee time for personnel and we're actually safer than working in the hotel industry.  And when you think about the big equipment that we move around on a daily basis, that's pretty incredible.  What I'd like to say is pretty succinct.  Are we looking to get out of OneCall completely?  No.  I think what we'd like to have an exemption for is for track maintenance in the track structure including the subgrade, grade valis track and the associated ditches.  In other words, we have to maintain ditches, but basically what's above Native soil that builds that track structure?  What are the reasons for that?  First of all, we're property owners that have been around since the 1820s.  We own the property.  We have a permanent system for anybody coming on that property and we need to install a utility across our property.  Stringent guidelines how those facilities can be installed.  You know?  There are certain depth implementations and you have to be below a certain depth depending on the type of utilities and you can't be in that track structure.  We just won't permit it.  We're not aware  let's talk about data.  We're not aware of any damage to any underground utilities which would have occurred as a result of routine track maintenance.  That would have been prevented by calling 811.  If you look at the data from the DIRT report, there's a very, very small number of railroad reported accidents and I would have to say that those are not railroad caused by track maintenance.  Are there situations where we would call one?  Absolutely.  If you work outside of that track structure, if you're working where you think you might damage another one utility, we're okay with calling 811 and that circumstance.  We operate over  when you look at shore line industry as well as the class ones or our members, we operate over 200,000 miles of track in the U.S.  And that doesn't include yard tracks.  That would add I'm sure many more thousands ever miles of track.  That track is maintained multiple times per year.  So you have [INAUDIBLE] cleaning and install time rails.  Matter of fact, we install 17 million new ties every year in the industry and we do ditch cleaning and that ditch cleaning is required by DOT regulation.  We have to keep them clean.

Another reason we feel there's a need for exempting is calling for locates on that much track.  It is not only significant to the burden of rail industry, but to the locaters.  If you take 200,000 miles of track and divide that by 365 days a year, that's 548 miles of track per day that we would have to have locates on.  Those locates would be on track where there's no access by road in a lot of circumstances.  So we would have to have either escort people out, there take them out there by high rail and locating facilities is not easy by railroads.  We don't have addresses for mile point 369.  You know, you're out there in the miss of no where.  So you have to have a system set up where you would have the availability to look at mile pulse number or you have to do it by that long.  And then there are limited exemptions provided.  We heard a lot about that earlier today.  I don't think we need to say any more about that, but there is precedence out there.  With that, I pick this last picture just to show you what the railroad rights would look like.  And if you look at it, there's no road on the side of that.  So getting access, the only way is to get in on a high rail vehicle, which is a truck with rail wheels and have the person escort you out there.  You have to make sure that track is protected.  There are safety issues involved and you'd have to do that in 548 miles per day.  Thank you.

>> We've come up to the time for questions and answers.  So I would ask anybody that has questions to go to the microphone.  Anybody on our webcast that has questions, please do email those in and we'll take care of them.  Sam, do we have some?

>> Sam:  We do.  We have two questions from our web viewers.  The first one comes from Lewis Panzer and he asked a question of Julie Ufner and Noel.  He asks:  While it is understood that it is difficult to know where Legacy facilities are with any accuracy, how do you feel about making all future installations locateable?  That is with tracer wire, for example.  Also, what is your position in response to the sewer lateral exemption issue regarding gas cross bores?  These are very technical issues and I know you both have said you have no positions as groups.  I wonder if you would be interested in sharing thoughts.

>> Yes.  I would support trace wires on new facilities.  And as far as the LATs, you have a number of them that are exempt.  My experience informs me they should be within the locate responsibility.  They should not be exempt.

>> And as a national association, we can't weigh in on that and personally, I don't feel able on behalf in on that either.

>> Sam:  Thank you.  We have one more.  This comes from Perez Travety.  He comment earlier with the state of New Jersey.  He says:  Do you guys, that it will help that even though an entity is exempt from OneCall, then also they have to get enough education and awareness and certification to maintain OneCall exemptions.  Is PHMSA ready for this.  Are we as PHMSA ready to do training and outreach with exemptions?

>> I think we have a very broad public education and outreach effort underway.  We probably need to expand it to make sure we're covering the right areas, that we're getting all the stakeholders, those that can be impacted.  At this point, don't think we have a specific program underway.  Exemptions are a fin thing.  Sometimes people don't know they're exempt.  Sometimes people do things because they don't they're exempt or they think they're exempt.  Yes, it is probably a good idea to reach out to those communities and make sure they know exactly where they stand on that.  I don't know, don't really have an opinion at this time whether that should be a state activity or whether that should be a national activity.

>> Mr. Walmsley, a thought occurred that I think in some cases, we heard from the agricultural community that an exemption for certain depth is often perceived to be an exempting for all depth, all digging and as we saw in a previous presentation, that's not necessarily the case.  Some activities are well below grade and can damage pipelines.  So there may be an opportunity to raise awareness among the agricultural community.

>> ANDREW:  It hasn't been discussed or a discussion within Farm Bureau but there is a network set up that our members do listen to and there's our [INAUDIBLE] universities extension.  Did would know easy to create some type of program through 811 through our extension offices and those folks work closely with our Farmers.  So there is an ability to educate that I don't know there's been happening so far.

>> Those are all the questions from the public, website.  Excuse me.

>> Any other questions from the group?  Okay.  Got several people coming to the mic.  So the gentleman in the green jacket is closest.  I'll you have go first.  Please identify yourself.

>> Steve Richardson, Houston.  I wanted to make a comment about the sewer laterals you just discussed.  In Texas, the municipalities are exempt from the one member or for locating their facilities and as a contract, we struggle every day work around municipalities or dealing with their inability to help those.  We do a lot of boring gas mines and electric lines and frequently those sewer lines get hit by gas lines.  Nothing gets incredibly dangerous situation.  You have hundreds of miles of gas lines, if not thousands of miles of gas lines crossing over sire lines.  Now the municipalities I kind of understand they are exempt from the OneCall, but then we fax them our notifications and, ah, I think on that last year, we called in 130,000 locate tickets.  That's the size of the operation we run in Houston.  There's probably I'm guessing 20 to 50 municipalities all divided up in Houston.  So we have to figure out which municipalities in that area and then we make an effort to send them a notice specifically to them.  You know, I've got a couple of examples here that I picked up before I came here.  These are the letters we get back when we ask for assistance.  I will go through a couple of these.  It says this letter is in response to your fax request.  Well, maybe  you name the company, but this is an operator.  7 train does not have traces to mark utilities and is unable to do so.  The utility district is not a member of the one core system.  The district lines are not equipped with their electronic tracking devices.  Therefore, they're unable to process this request.

>> Can I ask to you put those on the docket so everyone can share and we can consider it about we go into it.  I think the point you have people that are unable to locate their own facilities is clearly an issue that needs to be addressed especially if your job is to locate those.

>> So much if they operate under this umbrella of complacency because they're exempt from marking their lines, but okay.  I get they're exempt from the OneCall, but are they exempt from us asking them outside the OneCall for assistance because that's how they operate these days.  I'm only talking for Houston, Texas now.  I don't know about other states.  I know Texas in general is that way.  So they'll just say no.  If you damage them, you pay for them.  You're on your own.

>> I tell you what, with that question, let me ask Mayor Pawlowski.

>> Mayor:  We tried to contact with all of our states.  You know, I can't speak for any other municipality.  I can only speak for mine, but we  I think our staff really bends over back wards to try to make sure and accommodate so we're not cutting in to any of our lines.  I can only say that you need to talk to the Mayor and some of the other folks in leadership there in Houston because you think it would be to their advantage to work with you.

>> JULIE:  Do you know for the local governments what size they are?  I know Texas has 100 and something counties and a lot of them are secure may not have the technical experience T. goes back to yes.  They may not have their lines marked because of the type of line.  So how do you address that?  You know that is an issue and how do you move forward without mandating working with the local government so all of us are happy in the end.

>> Steven:  If they started doing anything, it would help us.  We would be willing to locate those lines ourselves.  All our crews have locate equipment, but even to this day, they're not putting tracer wire in and their reason is that it is too expensive now.  I don't buy that.  It's not expensive and we would locate those facilities for them if they did that.  The bottom line is from an excavator in Texas or from north eastern pole line, we can do whatever to get municipalities on board with some kind of damage prevention program.

>> Okay.  Thank you.  And again, please do put that information on the docket, if you would and we would encourage everybody else, people here, people on the webcast.  If you have information that would help us move forward on some of these issues or just to share with other stakeholders, please do add it on to the docket.  I believe the gentleman in the blue jacket is up next.

>> Tim Vaughn.  Question for the railroads.  Most states have a broad brushed exemption for routine maintenance.  I am curious to see what your opinion would be if language was added that would say in the exemption of one that right way intersects with a public rightofway.  I appreciate the statistics and I support that 100% that we don't need to be locating on the rail right away but when that intersects with a vehicular rightofway I think that's the point we're concerned about.

>> ROBERT:  Right.  We did have some discussion about that in preparation for this meeting.  I think in general, what I said is routine maintenance in the track structure and that is right under the track where we know there are  there shouldn't be no utilities.  We don't allow people to install stuff on our property that would be in that track structure.  Outside of that track structure, absolutely.  For putting in signal wires, you know, or some signal hit near the crossing, we're going to call for those kind of activities.  Absolutely.

>> Good information.  I believe the gentleman in the  I'm not sure what color that is.

>> Red.

>> You.  Red.  Thank you.

>> We're a gas operator in northern Indiana and I don't have a question for the panel.  So you can relax for a second.  I just have a comment in general.  After hearing the various speakers today and the variety of topics, to me it would make sense that we as an industry would come up with a best practices set of baseline exemptions that we can all agree on as a starting point so we can kind of get off of square one.  Similar to what the CGA, does with their best practices.  Just a suggestion.

>> I would life to have the industry and all stakeholders come up with the idea.  We need to move forward.  This is the place where we have a fair discussion to move forward.  Thank you.

>> Thank you.

>> Young lady.  Yes.

>> I'm going to need to bring this down just for my height, I think.  I think it's good now.  But just a question for the railroads.  I am Megan Romano and just the conversations I've had with railroads.  You guys definitely have a process that you go through that's similar to almost like an internal OneCall.  Include 811 in that because there's a lost public utility corridors.  There's thousands of miles of rail, but if you gave a quarter net, it is easy to clear, you know.  I think utilities would be willing to, you know, look in their systems and say okay.  We're clear T. wouldn't an extra burden I don't think in that situation.  It would be worth avoiding the strike.  You have guys talked about somehow bringing that in with your own internal project notifications that you do?

>> ROBERT:  I'm not 100% sure I understand the question.  Anybody who puts anything in our right away is required to file a permit application and it gets approved and we make sure whatever is installed is not installed where it's going to be a problem.  In other words, in the track structure.  We do call for things outside that track structure and yet ever you saying that if we want to put a tie in, for instance, that we should be calling OneCall?  Or where we know there are no utilities that are going to be damaged about we do that?

>> I just had the conversation with some of the local safety guys and they said, you know, we don't have to call.  You know, I respect that.  It's been in places where there are no utilities.  So maybe that's just a local misunderstanding there.  I guess that's what leased need ask if it become somehow standard to incorporate that in notifications.

>> ROBERT:  In talking to our members, they call.  If it is not track maintenance inside the track structure, they will call one ever had call because they want to make sure that nothing does get damaged.

>> Okay.  There's a lot of times crossings of the cross structure with utilities.  It was just a general question.  But maybe another conversation to have off the mic.

>> ROBERT:  Maybe we can get it afterwards.

>> Okay.  Perfect.  Thank you.

>> And this also isn't as much a question as a comment.  I am Scott Berry.  Usually I don't like to speak for others, but on behalf of the damage am committee, folks that have been in the damage committee, in some cases, rooms like this can be an echo chamber where we hear the same things over.  On behalf of the other for the folks that report those regulars that maybe this is the first time we've seen you, thanks for coming to the table.  We really appreciate getting new faces and new blood in here.  Honestly, I have not been around for a long time compared to moo of semi colleagues, but it is great to have new faces and folks on the table.  Thank you very, very much.

>> Agreed.  One last question.  Rick?

>> Rick Vaughn.  How about the opposite side of the equation.  I appreciate your comments about calling for doing certain sets of installs, but how about being a member ever the OneCall center and below facilities in for the system.  The railroads ready to do that or [INAUDIBLE] to do that?

>> ROBERT:  First of all, one thing that Bob Kipp talked about this morning is that they recognized the reason is why certain organizations might not need to be a member of OneCall.  We feel like we don't need to be members of OneCall because we own our property and maintain our records of what is on that property and in essence, our thought is that would be  I think the highway guy said it at this point.  It is almost like a duplication of effort.  We already do that.  So anybody who wants to put something on our property has to come to us and we have to mark those facilities and make sure they're safe.

>> I certainly understand that in the areas, but not all areas around be simple land.  Certainly a lost state OneCalls ask for designs as well.  Certainly I scheduled that is something you all consider.

>> First step the communication is good.  And so that's what we need to do.  I want to thank the panel.  I think you heard it from the audience themselves.  We appreciate you being here.  I'm going to propose that we take a short 5minute break if everybody is agreeable so we can change out tech cards and go out to the next panel so we can honor the Mayor's request that we get out of here early.  Five minutes?

[APPLAUSE]

>> Okay.  Do we have all our panel members?  Okay.  Everybody ready to get going again so we can move through the next panel?  Okay.  Okay.  Thank you, everybody.  You know, the most challenging panel to be on is the last panel of the day.  And the most difficult position to be on in the last panel is to be the last speaker.  So we need to thank Bert for take up the clean up.  Let's get going.  Our first speaker  let me get my note is going to be Tim Owen.  He is the Owens Burrow operations manager with Atmos Energy corporation.

>> TIM:  Thank you.  I am impressed there is this many people left at 4 o'clock in the afternoon.  It's an important issue, but die appreciate everyone being here.  Just a few moments, I promise there will be no pie charts and no graphs.  If you just lend me a few moments, I just have a few observations.  Someone has been in this industry on the job I've had is 35 years and no more arm's length away from it.  Started seeing and run a back hoe to being a leadership role if you want to call that.  There is someone that would debate that leadership, but a little about Atmos Energy.  We have 3 million plus customers.  Now a different perspective that allows me.  A chair  it just let's me see things born in Kentucky with 900 people.  I thought Hopkins down the road was pretty big with 25,000 people.  Everything is relative to where you've been sometimes in your life.  I've heard a lot about exceptions on OneCall this morning or this afternoon.  Are there good exemptions of that?  I don't know.  I guess some time it will wash itself out.  There probably are.  There probably are.  There are some things that maybe set us up for failure.  If you go out and I responded to hundreds of damages in my career and I drew up with people that were frequently causing those damages.  It used to be easier to damage something and they would pay for it whenever they tried to expose it.  Weaver all seen that.  Kind of look think through states.  We do certain amount of states.  Road, ditch maintenance, we've heard a lot about that.  Routine road and ditch  you know, if you don't change the flowline.  I like the one here at the bottom I pulled out.  An operation of which earth, rock or other material or mass below the ground is moved or otherwise displaced without the use of mechanical excavating equipment to a denning on of less than 12 inches on private property is in as clearly marked underground facility.  Explain that one to me.  You put that in a memo, we're just kind of going you go out and do you what you think is right maybe.  If anything happens, we'll figure it out.  Why wouldn't you want to call?  Why wouldn't you want to just call 811?  If you're a professional excavator, why wouldn't you want to call?  That was one that really just didn't  I don't understand it.  I do, but trying to leave it up to someone to tarp is not a good thing.  I remember about we first started having to call in Kentucky two days in advance.  I said that will never work.  We can't plan our work two days in advance.  That is unrealistic to even consider thinking.  I don't know what this afternoon is.  We can't call two days in advance.  Wait a moment work.  Won't work.  It just took a little planning and guess what, we've been doing it for 25 years, I guess, 30 years.  It works.  But it was a change in our culture and it is for a lot of people that dig.  As a gas company, we dig.  We're a big excavators.  The other thing is perceived exceptions.  We never had to call before.  We're nine states, 3 and a half million customers, 2.3 million customers and we serve 1200 communities.  A lot of those communities, we do so the Dallas, Fort Worth area which is a large metropolitan community, but we're very rural.  Most communities are 10,000 people, 3,000 customers.  And we serve communities that we have franchises in that we have 300 customers and actually, we had a Mayor up here and they had a city commission.  And guess what?  That's the only place that ever lived and they think sometimes that's what they know.  And that's their world and we expect them to understand and know exactly what is going on.  I sat down with many a Mayor.  I sent one of them a bill for $4,000.  It wasn't long before the supervisor calls and said the Mayor wants to meet with you.  He said what is this bill?  Why did you send us this bill for $4,000?  I said because the people that work for you weren't doing what they were supposed to.  And she said you have a franchise.  You're laying on our right away, which kind of goes back to my thinking of what we're talking about.  She thought she had an exception.  She didn't know any difference.  She just assumed because we had our pipe laying on her street that they didn't have any reason to worry about any kind of damages.  So it is a culture change.  Are some exceptions good?  Probably so.  And I think we'll figure it out, but some of them we need to look at.  A couple of them I showed you really don't make any sense.  Why don't we use an excavator?  At end of the day, just because you have an exception there's no way relieve you of any liability if something happens.  I mean, we're all in it together.  When something happens, there is no like transferred because I was just dig eight inches deal.  Just a few observations.  I'm probably  we're standing between you and sunshine and maybe a cold beer.  So thank you for the opportunity to talk.  Appreciate it.

[APPLAUSE]

>> Thank you.  Thank you, Tim.  I appreciate that.  Our next speaker will be Buzz Fant.  That's Edward A. Buzz Fant.  He's with Kinder Morgan.  I don't have on my secret sheet.  I don't know what your title is.  So I will let you introduce.

>> BUZZ:  I should have a slide.

>> [INAUDIBLE]

>> BUZZ:  There you G. I put that up there so you can see who I am.  Buzz Fant director of codes and [INAUDIBLE] group.  Today I will am representing API and AOPL.  I will reiterate some of the things that were said earlier this monk, but I won't dwell on it too much.  But for the record here, third party excavation damage is leading cause of pipeline accidents that are fatal and injurious to the public and pose a significant risk to the public safety.  The excavation damage incidents occur for diverse reasons ranging from resulting severity, but also pose significant risk to human life.  Many hits and near misses result from confusion of the scope of the exemption and couldn't apply to them or the activity.  Sometimes it is confusion to the two, who they're dealing with or for that causes those problems.  Exemptions to the OneCall notification system requirements have resulted in many hits and near misses.  We have heard a lost examples and yawl can read the slide there.  Every OneCall exemption and every failure to use the OneCall system before excavation threatens pipelines or public safety.  They pose hazard to the pointlines integrity.  We heard examples or two today where it is not instantaneous failure, but the pipe can have a failure two or three weeks or months down the road.  So it is a very much concern for us if we're going to continue the pipeline.  We recognize that some exceptions are necessary, but they often lead to unintentional consequences.  You said that to the team about the city.  What I want to do is give two case studies just to kind of  we talked about some, but let me talk about two specific ones.  One is card on November 7th, 2011 in Topeka, Illinois.  The farmer used as newly purchased field tiling plow.  The guise knew  we'll see a picture in a minute.  And sat there watching TV and said I would like to try this and see how it is going to work.  He grab its and his out to an area and starts to see how it feels with his tractor and stuff and we have some damage to the pipe.  By the way, there has been a lot of questions here about the difference between tilling and tiling.  Do you know the difference?  There's a big L of the difference.  Tilling with two Ls.

[Laughter]

I just thought I would throw that in.  On this particular event, there was  depth of cover had 4 inches of pipeline.  The farmer was aware of the line that demonstrates the effectiveness.  And he acknowledged he had received our brochures.  He knew our pipeline was there, but, you know, we went out there to try this equipment out and the line was bummed twice.  The third strike drove through both sides of the pipeline.  Our pipeline control center recognized that we had an issue.  One reason is we were fortunate in this particular situation is a pipe was shut in because we were doing maintenance on the pipe.  We seat pressure is 157 for nearby work.  It is normally 6,000 to 1,000 feet there.  So that's what it looked like.  The higher than the  the tractor  do I have a pointer on here?  Yeah.  You can't point it this way.  You have to point it this way.  Yawl seed [INAUDIBLE].  That's the release.  But a lot of propane.  Again it is only 157 pounds.  There's the equipment that he was using.  As Don talked earlier about different types of equipment that we're getting to, but looking at what was on the edge of that, did you all see it on the orange there.  Call before you dig.  That was what the pipe was like that he damaged.  Okay?  So when the farmer struck the line, he exit the cab.  Don't know if he took off.  He was [INAUDIBLE] he was struggling to breathe.  He did manage to escape.  We've been operating and we wouldn't be talking about the  been able to interview the guy because it is pretty serious.  In existence of the forming exemption, it has created confusions with serious ramifications.  That's case one.  Case 2 it is municipalities and know the government entities.  This occurred in 2003 in Alabama.  We had a road grading machine that struck one of the pipelines.  It didn't submit a OneCall request.  And the county crews in Alabama are exempt from the OneCall law as you can see here where it says that government entities do maintenance work within the dedicate state, county or city work right away.  So that doesn't apply the section.  Doesn't apply to those folks.  Sequence of events.  Pipeline was shut down.  Actually, went down on low suction.  Larger point opened point.  We merge on the response based on that information.  Then we got to receive a call from the county, state and what they had outlined.  There was confusion about the folks if it was a gas line and we recorded it as a gas line.  People see it as a natural gas line.  It was in fact one of our lines.  So we luckily had one of the other agencies that recognized the line there.  They were able to call us.  Damage included 2 BBLs.  5 mobile homes were impacted.  This situation was nearly a tragedy.  The municipalities and government entities should not be exempt from placing OneCalls for the same activity as private.  State employee life is just as valuable as a home owner's employee or pipeline employees and if they're doing work around pipeline, we'll do everything we can to protect them.  Sod exemptions of strains that are put on pipeline companies is that because we know the people are out there, exemptions are doing work they shouldn't be doing, most pipeline companies engage in more frequent patrolling that would regulation would allow.  We also participate more monitoring in known areas.  If we know people are out working in an area and they have a history of not calling OneCall or calling the OneCall and they may be exempt, but then they don't recognize that when we ask we want to be there working with 225 feet from us, they don't acknowledge that and they keep work around it.  That makes us want to go out there patrolling before they get close.  It does take more resources for that right away.  We have extra efforts to call OneCall.  It is interesting looking that the data that Peter mentioned this morning.  There was a case where one of the companies folks were driving by.  I know some county workers were digging and had made OneCall.  So they stopped and talked to him.  By the time I guy got back to the office, the County had received a phOneCall from the county supervisor saying telling us don't talk to our guys anymore.  You're scaring them.  You know?  So not lack of knowledge, but a little knowledge and it scares him.  But we do spend a lot of time stopping and talking to folks right away.  It is very important.  Operators must uncover pipelines when something exposed.  So if a company has not made a OneCall, we have not go out there and marked it, we have not had a chance to witness it, they established the integrity.  We'll have to dig down and look at it.  So those are some of the extra impact of exemptions especially when the work is done over the pipeline and we have not known about it.  API model one recommendation were on the record for this.  They're intended for states.  We support common lines and we also have order safety principals.  We do have a passion that sat on the website if you are interested in that.  And then we talked about the activities.  They should not be  excuse me.  I can't see the limits writing there.  This is what happens when you get old.  Okay.  Let's just go through this again.  Read.  Activities that should be not be eligible for OneCall exemptions.  Road construction repair regardless of the entity.  The excavation including such as crack and sea technology.  The grating or clearing of road side ditches or drainage ditches by state or county and government agencies or the contractors recognize the request.  Power driving, walking or spreading large vessels regardless of the entity conducting the excavation.  Railroad excavations in and of their own right away including, but not limited track repair from derailments are releases or clean ups.  The trenches excavation is [INAUDIBLE] drilling.  And in conclusion, the OneCall exemptions have caused hits and misses.  OneCall exemptions have operates are to spend additional resources and training and patrolling to utilize the model OneCall provisions to insure greater safety for the public.

>> Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

>> Going through a lot.  Terry, you're up next.  Terry Boss is the senior vice president for the inner state Gas Association of America.  

>> TERRY:  Thank you very much, Linda, for the opportunity to speak.

Scott spoke for INGAA.  Our pipelines are very similar to API PAL pipelines.  Very high pressure and can cause an awful lot of damage if somebody does rupture that.  And I'm going to be speaking from that kind of category now not taking from the LDCs or the other pipelines out there, but explaining what are the issues out there.  Our trade association whether members have set up a voluntary program to move forward on a lot of commitments as was mentioned before were very much focused on culture.  And taking that personnel safety culture and moving it to public safety and we're trying to eliminate accidents all together.  Have no incidents.  And that's fair.  We're trying to improve in all areas that we can on these sort of things and obviously excavation damage is a primary area that we're trying to damage.  Um, as mentioned on the hazardous liquid lines, even though we may have more incidents with other kinds of causes, the most serious incidents are usually people around pipeline about they're excavating and that's because they are located there.  So it's the primary cause of serious accidents out there.  Also, because as suddenness of the jacks and so on like that, it is very impactful to the public because they usually are spectacular type accidents and tragic results on those sort of things.  And, ah, the challenge here is that excavation damage is at shared responsibility for all the parties in there.  So that's one of the challenges to solve this.  And OneCall exemptions is basically one root cause of this complicated process we have out.  There that's the whole purpose of CGA is to work on the whole process to figure it out, but this is one cause out there.  We did put comments into the docket very similar to API, OPL and AGA on these things on what we thought was the right thing to be moving forward on that.  What we have seen in our excavation damage access because of the steel pipelines that we have, primarily the causes that stand out us to are the state department of transportation, their employees or contractors on that.  Municipal or county employees that are involved the incident, agricultural entities and railroad are the primary ones that affect our type of pipelines.  Local distribution companies may have different situation, but we'll primarily rule in large diameter line on these things.  We have looked at the statistical data.  Scott went over some of that.  The reports give United States if you're into safety management systems, we talk about leading and lags indicators.  This is an indicator after the event happened rather than predicting events happening and then the CGA DIRT data has indicators out there.  There isn't a lot of real good leading indicators to figure out what you're doing there.  And the present information we have to understand the exemptions is have some cheat sheets, but you can see by the analysis of the different states that are going on there and the nuances that it is very hard response and really articulate what is going on in the state OneCalls.  The damage sources we have that Scott was mentioning do not specifically collect exemption data.  And there really hasn't been explicit composite analysis of this information out there today.

So what we're talking about possibly is a proposal and this is asked before if there was any ideas out there.  We think the PHMSA reports should have exception data.  Somebody may have an exemption.  They may have called in and something else happened during the excavation thing.  Is the question why they didn't do something?  As again as a reason for whatever happened on the incident the exemption out there rather than this categoric or I'm a railroad and I have exemption.  If that was a real incident for the real reason, I think that is important because in a lot of cases, people may not understand that they don't have the exemption or forgot to call or something like that and that really isn't the exemption is not really the cause of the accident.  It was them not understanding what they should be doing.  And then there are OneCall tickets out there in nonexempt states.  There are states that do cover these out there and there is good information.  It gives you a numerator of how many times the nonexempt people and other states are calling in.  So that can be very good information to figure out from a numerator stand point of another state how many of these may be going to that we really don't see.  And then the data to understand the exemption categories we can do a lot better analysis of what's going on and the OneCalls and regulations and do that analysis out there.  And take that information and essentially do an analysis on that kind of information.  I think that would be very, very useful and you do it from a national standpoint.  So we recommend that national data should be clarified on the OneCall exemptions.  And then we think if we could be recorded in the incident reports, the CGA DIRT reports and then you go across and do essentially a report card on a state.  You go in and say okay.  This is the analysis of what we've got for exemption analysis within a state.  Here are the leading indicators of who has been hit in the states on those sort of things and an important thing I think we're forgetting even though a company may have an exemption on those sort of things or an industry has an exemption.  Maybe members participate on that OneCall and do that sort of thing.  A good example of that is our trade association.  There are certain regulation we're supposed to abide by, but there are voluntary things we have committed to do that are out in the regulation.  Are we attempting to do this?  Do we have an exemption?  Maybe.  But the point is if they are participating of in the thing, they should be getting credit for participating of in anything not just because it is an exemption out there.  And then as we move through this thing, I think there's a good place to prioritize what are the big things to attack first.  We make commitments to have zero incident.  We have a peck order on there and we're trying to work with those things to move it down.  It is the same sort of thing with PHMSA and the city and CGA should work O. we should get on quickly and solve the problems.  Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

>> Linda:  Thank you, Terry.  Next is Bert Kalisch.  He's in the clean up spot.  He also represents APGA research foundation.

>> BERT:  Well, APG applauds PHMSA, for the thorough and short footed steps to seek comments and to gather those comments.  Review those comments, data and all the input from all the stakeholders in this process.  I would like to thank Linda and Ann Marie for their leadership and appreciate the opportunity to payment in this conference.

APGA is the trade association for public gas utilities.  There's about a thousand across the country.  We serve over 5 million commercial customers.  Over 21,000 employees.  120,000 miles of main.  One of the characteristics and attributes of a public cache utility is the size.  The largest gas utility is Philadelphia gas works and that goes down to 12 meters in freedom, Oklahoma.  Chances are whoever operates that is probably wearing many hats for that city.  There's only about 1300, 1350 gas utilities in the country.  Gas utilities serve about 70 million residential and commercial customers and the thousand public gas utility serve a little over five.  So they are rather small.  When you start with Philadelphia, half a million, you get down to just the 15th largest and you drop by a fact offer of 10 to under 50,000 meters.  Get down to 100 and you drop below and you get down about 450.  You get down to 725 and you drop below 500 meters and I mention that because safety in our industry is number 1.  It's the number 1 priority.  In APGA, for those systems that are small, the dos are voluntary.  We think in support to get safety information out to all those utilities.  They may not be able to afford membership, but we insure that they receive information about what's going to in rural makings and make available our educational and training programs to them.  The safe and reliable delivery with affordable and natural gas to adjust reasonable rates is our number 1 priority for EPGA and I think we're here today because of this first whine in the priority safe and reliable delivery and certainly OneCall goes to that.  That is why we are here.  APGA's position on the exemptions basically goes something like.  This I just have two sliced.  APGA support the efforts to encourage states to adopt and enforce effective excavation damage prevention programs.  Year after year, excavation damage is the leading cause of reportable incidents on natural gas distribution piping.  Excavation damage is to large extent beyond the control of the distribution operator; however, states such as Virginia have proven that effective state damage prevention programs can significantly reduce excavation damage.  APGA believes that the rule has reasonable criteria for determining if a state has an effective damage program.  In the perfect world, there are no exemptions.  But we don't live in a perfect world.  So, um, I didn't.  I was paraphrasing Voltaire until earlier today.  But the perfect should not be the enemy of the good.  One concern that EPGA does have involves the proposal to restrict pipeline safety grants to states that PHMSA does not have as prevention program.  They must take care of and applying the appropriate penalties to state programs that have been determined to be inadequate.  They believe that any funding cuts from a finding that a state damage prevention program is inadequate should be limited to damage prevention grants money.  The general pipeline state funding should not be reduced.  In many states, the pipeline safety agency is not the agency responsible for enforcing damage prevention laws.  In most states, the legislature must act to an effective damage prevention and the pipeline safety agency is subservient to that legislature and not visa versa.  Neither the damage prevention  neither the damage prevention granted nor the general pipeline safety grants would negatively affect the resource available for pipeline safety in the state.  Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

>> Linda:  Wow.  It's been a day, hasn't it.  A lot of good information.  You know, one of the things I'm charged with doing is summarize at end of the day everything we've talked about.  How do you do that?  You know, it's amazing.  So I'm trying to keep my notes here.  Let me ask, are there any questions from the audience?  I see one person and also I will check to see  no on the web.  Okay.  So I can't see who you are.

>> Mike with the Association of American Railroads.  Quick question I asked Peter this morning which is when you say that railroads have caused incidents, do we know what the facts and circumstances are that gave rise to those incidents?  Am. 

>> TERRY:  Scott went through the incident report forms.  We have been collecting data since 1970 on those.  The particular events you would have to look at each event for one as I mentioned, I didn't say necessarily because there was an exemption on those things, but those were the folks that were involved in the things.  The CGA DIRT has some information on there to do that sort of thing, but primarily from the PHMSA reports that are on there.

>> Just going back to Linda's opening remarks that it is important to with look at not the status, but the activity that's taking place.  Thank you.

>> Linda:  Thank you.  Any other questions?  You know, I'm going to read off some items in my notes and see if they resonate with you.  I am not voicing an opinion.  These are things I heard today.  The data analysis may be needed, but it is complex.  I heard that PHMSA incident report should ask more about OneCall tickets and exemptions.  Gotta strike them off ore I will be repeating myself.  I heard that the notion of exemptions contradict our overall statement that we should always call before we dig.  I heard that in regard to data, that one approach might to be bucket states that have similar exemptions and then compare the data from those states because we do have some data work.  That was one option.  I heard that we might want to consider getting together and talk about common definitions and terms.  So we talk across states and everybody will understand a common language.  I heard that sometimes it's a good idea to get the federal government helping with an issue because it may overcome some local resistance or local politics that might be inhibiting action that we would all support.  I heard we all, all stakeholders have experience and knowledge to share not just the ones that we're familiar with and not just the loudest voices, but everybody has something they can contribute to the issue.  I also heard that excavators in regard to exemptions that excavators going tout do work may think that all facilities have been marked.  They may not realize that there's a particular facility that might not be marked.  And they might come into harms way because they just simply don't know that it's there.  Exemption should be a state issue because there are different practices in different states.  Our country is similar, but we're not homogenous.  I heard three times  because I wrote it down  perfection should not stand in the way of good.  Isn't that amazing three people have the same quote?  That is pretty amazing.  I have to look that one up.  I also heard someone say you need to be realistic.  You need to look at freeze age solutions.  You need to consider cost implications.  I heard someone say hey, why don't we set up a best practices group among stake holders that looks at exemptions.  What makes sense to all of us.  I heard several times people say there's a lot of folks that don't know whether they're exempt or not.  So maybe we need to do a little bit more education and help those people recognize what applies to them.  I also heard that the limitation on grants to the states may have a negative impact.  I would say that is something that might have to be fixed in the next authorization because it's the law that we have to deal, but it might have a negative impact.  And maybe there's work that needs to be done in that area.  This is just my short list.  It's a lot of good stuff there.  Where we have to try to path is take all the ideas and more ideas and by the way I plead with all of you.  I mentioned it before.  Put your good ideas on the docket.  Those of out webcast, put your good ideas on the docket.  We need good, healthy solution.  We have a diverse group during the day.  We saw people talking that we never talked to before and we heard from people with different perspectives.  Let's take it all in.  Let's figure out how to move forward in a way that is realistic, that is fees age, that doesn't impose an undue burden.  We have to comply with the law and we want people to be safe and let's be realistic.  And that quote was let's make sure we don't shoot for perfection that will stand in the way of good.  Let's do something that will keep people safe.  So thank you all.  It's amazing to have so many people here at end of the day.  I thank you all on the webcast.  I wish you safe travels and I hope the sun is still up and that everybody gets to enjoy a little bit of Florida.  Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]